By Geoffrey Wertime, Staff Writer
MONTGOMERY The township is not banning smoking on all municipal property.
Such was the consensus at the Township Committee’s Thursday meeting, when Republican Mayor Mark Caliguire said the ordinance the committee introduced at its previous meeting went beyond what he had intended.
The ban was unanimously introduced without comment at the committee’s Oct. 7 meeting. But last week Mayor Caliguire said he had originally intended the ban as a way to stop township employees who smoke from getting more breaks than nonsmoking municipal workers.
That intention, he said, got lost in translation when it was written into an ordinance.
”As much as I hate smoking and I hate smoking in public places; I’m not sure if it’s something where we want to take the big step of banning it completely,” he said.
As introduced, the ban would have made it illegal to smoke on municipal property, like township offices, parkland and open space, and the senior center, but not sidewalks or streets. Had it passed, the ban would have taken effect Jan. 1.
The mayor and some residents said they worried about police having to enforce the law and the issues of liberty it could bring up.
”I do think that there’s a freedom issue here in terms of the general public,” Mayor Caliguire said. But he added, “When it comes to township employees, I think there’s sort of a fairness issue (with taking smoking breaks).”
Eric Whites, of Skillman Road, said he has never been a smoker but disliked the move toward more restrictions on personal freedom.
”What kind of bugs me is just more and more government control of what you’re doing,” he said.
”My heart is in the right place on the subject here, but I do have an issue if you make this a blanket prohibition on smoking on public property.”
Mr. Whites called smokers “a dying breed” and that the cultural habit “is not going to last forever,” an assertion the mayor disputed by calling youth smoking rates “alarmingly high.”
But the two agreed on the overall effect the law could have.
”I just don’t want to see the police department having to go out and issue tickets because somebody says, ‘Hey, that guy’s smoking over there,’” Mr. Whites said.
Former mayor Don Matthews said he also was against the blanket ban.
”I am not a smoker either, but I watched my daughter fight it all her life, and it is one of the most agonizing things to do to watch somebody that cannot quit,” he said. He added, “I watched my father die from emphysema.”
He suggested the township follow a recent law by Somerset County banning smoking within 50 feet of public buildings.
Mayor Caliguire said he did want to encourage municipal workers to quit, but also said the proposed ordinance was “way too broad for us to have police determine whether people should be smoking or not. I worry about selective enforcement.”
Ultimately, the committee decided to let the ordinance die without further discussion. Officials will draft a new ordinance to ban smoking on public property where there are municipal employees, like the Municipal Building.
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