A highly contested bill to require stores to keep cigarettes out of sight has been quietly dropped from a package of anti-tobacco measures that would make New York the first city to raise the legal smoking age to 21.

Administration officials cited an unresolved debate over electronic cigarettes as a reason for scrapping the display ban. But others, including both advocates and opponents of e-cigarettes, said that with time short for Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg to burnish his legacy, he chose to withdraw a measure that was fiercely opposed by a coalition of retail stores and likely to meet a powerful constitutional challenge.

The City Council is expected this week to vote on the rest of the measures, including ones that would increase the smoking age to 21 from 18 and prohibit the sale of discounted tobacco products.

Mr. Bloomberg had described the display ban as a way to shield children from tobacco marketing and to keep those quitting smoking from impulse buys. But tobacco retailers and store owners argued that it would hurt business and cost jobs, while driving more smokers to the black market. Parts of the original bill were also opposed by advocates for e-cigarettes, nicotine-delivery devices alternately viewed as healthier alternatives to smoking or as gateways to addiction.