The ban prohibits the use of smokeless tobacco on all ball fields where professional, collegiate, high school or amateur sports are played. Violators will face a $250 fine.
Aside from the fine, Fenway will be riddled with no dipping signs as a result of the ban. Signs will be posted in “dugouts, bullpens, training rooms, locker rooms, press boxes, television and radio broadcast booths, and bathrooms throughout the sports venues.”
Boston Red Sox Manager John Farrell has called chewing tobacco a baseball “tradition,” and slugger David Ortiz dips every time he steps up to the plate.
Mayor Marty Walsh said he signed the ban “for the children.”
New Fenway Park. Coming to New Hampshire in 2018.
“For the children”
Every time I see that phrase all kinds of red flags pop up in my mind.
I gave up tobacco a long time ago but geez... chew and baseball have gone together forever.
Notice this kind of thing is happening in extreme blue states and areas within those blue states.
Idiots. If you really want to be a nanny state, go after ballpark food and drinks - THAT would be for the children.
“Boston becomes the second city after San Francisco to approve such a ban”
The 2 biggest left wing toilets in America.
Los Angeles City Council banned ‘smokeless tobacco’ at Dodger Stadium just yesterday...
That should make it easier for the Sox to find talent - excepting the defectors from Castro and Obama’s Cuba, of course.
I put a chaw in and spit twice and then no more for however long I keep it in, catch me if you can nanny staters.
I lost a cousin to spit tobacco. A lifetime playing and coaching so of course I tried it too. But at the end of the day the alcohol sold at the games is going to cause more pain and suffering than chew. If this was really “for the children” they would ban the sale of alcohol and advertising. Too much money to be had for that to happen so pat yourselves on the back for the empty gesture.
They should call it a cleaning fee rather than a fine.
So, you can still buy beer and get drunk, be belligerent and vomit if you like?
What about “crotch grabbing”, “butt slapping”, “snot rockets”, spitting sunflower seed shells, tattoos, etc.? You know, for the children.
can they do that ? I thought Fenway was privately owned ?
What law allows this?