It\u2019s been a beloved Los Angeles tradition for well over a decade. On New Year\u2019s Eve, a crowd of people gather around on Santa Monica Boulevard and Veteran Avenue in West L.A. to celebrate at midnight.<\/p>\n
The crowd isn\u2019t waiting for a ball to drop, or for a bell to toll \u2014 not in L.A. Instead, the crowd is waiting for the exact moment that an anti-smoking billboard resets. Its message warns of the dangers of lighting up by showing the number of people who\u2019ve died that year due to smoking.<\/p>\n
For one beautiful moment, the billboard shows that not a single American has died from lung cancer or other smoking-related illnesses in the new year. (Of course, there\u2019s no way to know this for sure \u2014 the counter is based on previous estimates and statistical averages.)<\/p>\n
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The billboard has grown from a neighborhood gathering, as the L.A. Times reported<\/a> in 2012, to a packed viral celebration in the 2020s. Some Reddit users even loosely planned<\/a> this year\u2019s meetup, and it\u2019s now cemented as a mainstay of how this beautiful, occasionally smoky city rings in the new year.<\/p>\n What\u2019s the origin story?<\/p>\n The billboard dates back to 1987. William E. Bloomfield Sr., an ex-smoker, anti-smoking advocate and Redondo Beach resident, put it up to make the effects of smoking feel more real, according to the L.A. Times<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cI want to do what I can to get even a few people to quit, or at least think about it,\u201d Bloomfield told the Times back then.<\/p>\n Drumroll: What do the sponsors have to say?\u00a0<\/p>\n LAist reached out to the billboard\u2019s sponsors to get their take, and long story short: They\u2019re fans of the tradition.<\/p>\n \u201cSeeing the social media response of Angelenos counting down the New Year alongside this billboard is a powerful example of how impactful public awareness can be,\u201d said Jen Maduko, the American Cancer Society\u2019s senior executive director in Los Angeles, in a statement provided to LAist. \u201cLung cancer continues to claim more lives than any other cancer, and smoking remains the leading preventable cause.\u201d<\/p>\n