Princeton Health Commission endorses smoking ban in new plaza

A message to community youth.

By: Rachel Silverman
   The Princeton Regional Health Commission has endorsed an ordinance that would ban smoking in the outdoor plaza set to open on Witherspoon Street next to the Princeton Public Library.
   The Borough Council introduced the ordinance — which would extend many of the current regulations on public parks to the outdoor plaza — on April 5, and it will revisit it during a public hearing April 26.
   In addition to the smoking ban, the ordinance would apply restrictions to dogs, disorderly conduct, liquor and littering to the plaza.
   "The Health Commission voted unanimously to endorse non-smoking in the public plaza," Health Commission Chair Susan Kapoor said, referring to Tuesday night’s decision.
   "One of the best ways for youth to remain tobacco-free is to create a social norm where smoking is not acceptable," she continued. "It’s not a matter of secondary smoke, it’s in prevention of addiction.
   "Adolescents smoke for a myriad of reasons. One of them is that it’s adult-like," Ms. Kapoor said. "We want to disassociate it from normal adult behavior."
   The commission, in fact, has long been a proponent of smoking bans.
   In 2000, the Health Commission adopted a ban on smoking in most public indoor places, prompting a lawsuit by several downtown Princeton bars and restaurants and a smokers’ rights group. Mercer County Superior Court Judge Linda Feinberg overturned the ban, ruling that state law permits only the Legislature, and not municipalities, to regulate smoking in public places.
   "The court told us we were overreaching our authority," Ms. Kapoor said of this decision. "We originally wanted smoking prohibited in indoor public places in Princeton," she said.
   "This is the only one we’ve considered," Ms. Kapoor said, referring to the endorsement of a smoke-free plaza. "But the commission has for years been leading the public discussion against smoking," she added.
   The borough ordinance does not present the sole push for a smoke-free Princeton community.
   The Community Park Pool complex, for example, represents another outdoor space where smoking is not permitted. And resolutions on smoking are also popping up on the state level.
   A bill that would prohibit smoking in public places like bars, restaurants and social clubs is working its way through the Legislature. Under this resolution, tobacco shops, such as Princeton Borough’s A Little Taste of Cuba, would be exempt from enforcing a no-smoking policy.