The mayor's office in New York City is giving serious consideration to a proposal to raise the city's legal smoking age from 18 to 21, the Associated Press reported June 29.

Joel Rivera, chair of the City Council's health committee, recently introduced a bill to raise the smoking age, and city Health Commissioner Thomas Frieden said that the idea is "certainly something that should be looked at."

"We need to think about ways that we can further reduce smoking," he said.

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has taken aggressive steps to limit smoking in the city, including banning smoking in public places and imposing hefty taxes on cigarettes. The city also has cracked down on stores that sell cigarettes to minors.

New York state lawmakers this year proposed raising the state's legal smoking age to 19, but the measure died.