A legal challenge to a new law aimed at keeping New York City tobacco prices sky high has gone up in smoke.
Manhattan federal Judge Thomas Greisa on Wednesday sided with the city in a lawsuit filed in January by tobacco companies and trade groups representing cigarette retailers.
Greisa in a 36-page ruling said pricing regulations signed into law last November by then-Mayor Bloomberg – which set the minimum price for cigarette packs at $10.50 and prohibited the use of coupons and other promotional discounts to lower that price — pass legal muster and don’t violate free speech rights protected under the First Amendment.