Bloomberg’s London staff told to stop littering cigarette butts

Bloomberg’s London staff has come under fire from one of its high-profile neighbors, which is accusing staff at the financial and media group’s new European headquarters in the City of London of littering the neighborhood during smoking breaks, reports Tim Burke of Financial News.

Burke writes, “The City of London Magistrates’ Court has lodged a complaint with the City of London Corporation, which governs the Square Mile, about the number of cigarette butts being left outside its building.

“The court told the City Corporation that the main culprits are staff from Bloomberg, which has banned smoking in front of its own building on Queen Victoria Street.

“The complaint will be an embarrassment to Bloomberg, whose state-of the-art headquarters, designed by world-renowned architect Norman Foster, was named the world’s most sustainable office building in 2017, due to innovative systems such as the collection of rainwater from the roof to flush the toilets.

“As mayor of New York, company founder Michael Bloomberg introduced a smoking ban in the city’s restaurants and bars in 2003. That ban was extended to all public spaces in 2011. Bloomberg Philanthropies has since put hundreds of millions of dollars into anti-tobacco initiatives, and Michael Bloomberg has described cutting the use of tobacco as ‘one of our greatest opportunities to save lives and prevent suffering.'”

Read more here. A Bloomberg spokesman gave Talking Biz News the following statement: “In response to increased traffic to the bins the City installed near our offices, we extended our cleaning services beyond our property line this year as a service to the broader community.”

Chris Roush

Chris Roush was the dean of the School of Communications at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut. He was previously Walter E. Hussman Sr. Distinguished Professor in business journalism at UNC-Chapel Hill. He is a former business journalist for Bloomberg News, Businessweek, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Tampa Tribune and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. He is the author of the leading business reporting textbook "Show me the Money: Writing Business and Economics Stories for Mass Communication" and "Thinking Things Over," a biography of former Wall Street Journal editor Vermont Royster.