New York City Mayor Eric Adams signed laws Friday that may ban discrimination primarily based on physique measurement by including weight and peak to the record of protected classes equivalent to race, intercourse and faith.

“We all deserve the same access to employment, housing and public accommodation, regardless of our appearance, and it shouldn’t matter how tall you are or how much you weigh,” stated the mayor, who joined different elected officers in addition to fat-acceptance advocates at a City Hall bill-signing ceremony.

Adams, a Democrat who revealed a guide about reversing his diabetes by means of a plant-based eating regimen, stated the ordinance “will help level the playing field for all New Yorkers, create more inclusive workplaces and living environments, and protect against discrimination.”

Exemptions underneath the ordinance, which the town council handed this month, embrace instances wherein a person’s peak or weight may forestall them from performing important capabilities of a job.

Some enterprise leaders expressed opposition to the laws when it was earlier than the council, arguing that compliance may grow to be an onerous burden.

“The extent of the impact and cost of this legislation has not been fully considered,” Kathy Wylde, president and CEO of the Partnership for New York City, stated in an announcement.

Several different U.S. cities have banned discrimination primarily based on weight and bodily look, together with San Francisco, Washington, D.C., and Madison, Wisconsin. And laws to ban weight and peak discrimination has been launched in states together with New Jersey and Massachusetts.

Tigress Osborn, the chair of the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance, stated New York City’s weight discrimination ban ought to function a mannequin for the nation and the world.

Osborn stated the town’s adoption of the brand new ordinance “will ripple across the globe” and present that “discrimination against people based on their body size is wrong and is something that we can change.”

The ordinance will take impact in 180 days, on Nov. 22.

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