Beware all you New Yorkers and tourists who have yet to kick the habit.

Ocean Parkway would be one of the many public spaces where smoking could be banned entirely soon if Mayor Bloomberg gets his wish.

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, who has already banned smoking in restaurants and bars, wants to prohibit it in much of the great outdoors: parks, beaches and even pedestrian malls and plazas like those around Times Square, on Ocean Parkway in Brooklyn and Broadway on the Upper West Side.

The proposed law, which is to be introduced to the City Council on Thursday, would cover all 1,700 parks, playgrounds and recreational facilities, and 14 miles of city beaches, as well as boardwalks, public marinas and the public pedestrian malls and plazas.

City health officials proposed a smoking ban in parks and beaches last year, but the mayor seemed to be caught off guard by the idea and did not immediately embrace it. But after he and his health commissioner, Dr. Thomas Farley, spent months looking at studies, Mr. Bloomberg delivered a broadside against secondhand smoke at a news conference on Wednesday and said that one poll showed 65 percent of adults were with him.

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Source: Anemona Hartocollis / New York Times

After being caught off guard when the city’s health commissioner first proposed the idea, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said on Tuesday that he was leaning toward seeking a ban on smoking at city parks and beaches.

Mr. Bloomberg said the ban made sense because it would cut the health risks of secondhand smoke and reduce littering by smokers.

“We’re talking about banning smoking on beaches and in parks, and it’s partially because you can breathe the air,” Mr. Bloomberg said when he was asked about a ban. “It’s in the open air, but the air wafts in your direction. But it is also because people take their cigarette butts and the packages and just throw them away.”

“When you ask people in our parks and beaches,” he added, “they say they just don’t want smokers there.”

The city’s health commissioner, Dr. Thomas A. Farley, said Tuesday that smoking was the leading preventable cause of death among residents, killing 7,500 New Yorkers per year, more than AIDS, drugs, homicide and suicide combined.

He said a smoking ban would be the equivalent of bans on loud radios and glass bottles on beaches, and could save millions of dollars in trash cleanup.

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Source: Edward-Isaac Dovere / City Hall News

Dan Donovan, the Republican attorney general nominee, clearly has Michael Bloomberg’s support. The mayor endorsed Donovan at his campaign kick-off, speaks warmly of him whenever given the chance and has already hosted a fundraiser for the Staten Island district attorney at his townhouse.

Who else will benefit from his financial and popular largess is, for now, unclear.

Which is not to say that Bloomberg, comfortable in his (for now) term-limited last round at City Hall and facing a potentially spiraling investigation into his campaign contributions thanks to the indictment of John Haggerty, will be sitting out this election year. Political events have already started appearing on his public schedule, including a short speech at the Republican State Convention dinner in early June to introduce former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, a board member of his foundation and a charter-school advocacy ally.

And there will be more, on behalf of specific candidates.

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