While other criticisms of the mayor – his apparent coziness with developers, his penchant for ever-increasing parking fines -- may be justified, the “nanny” charge is not.

The latest campaign by the city’s Department of Health, the subject of our cover story, is a case in point.

Whether any smoker will be discouraged from lighting up when seeing a large poster of a diseased lung or stroke-afflicted brain, remains to be seen.

But it’s a good try. There isn’t any real nanny around to stop him from killing himself -- this might be the next best thing.

And to dispel the inevitable argument that the Bloomberg administration is implementing this merely to raise more revenue from fining retailers who don’t comply, I have a suggestion: Use all the money from such fines to fund more quit-smoking TV ads – like the one showing a smoker who has lost his voice through tobacco smoke and must talk through a mechanical device in his throat, or the woman who lost several fingers by way of smoking-induced illness.

If this saves even one smoker from disease or death, it’d be worth it.