Board of Aldermen 05-14-2019 Page 23
and so on and that was because we were going to be losing highway funding. | agree with it, | agree
with raising the tobacco age to 21. | don’t agree with it here in Nashua. | think I’ve said this over and
over again so I'll stop here, thank you.
Alderman Harriott-Gathright
First of all | want to clarify what | did say when | testified before in regards to this and what | did say is
that we have received a lot of data in regards to this and | believe it was Ms. Valuk tonight that actually
said some of the things that | talked about. | said that the statistics showed that most of the people
that use the vapor and the nicotine were economically deprived. | also said that they were also of
color, alright? Those are the two things. The other things that | did say about this is that those kids
that were being arrested were low income, or of color. Now this is statistic-wise, because one of the
things that we have here is the $50.00 and the $100.00 alright? And the Police said that the only way
that they could actually enforce this is by putting the money there, otherwise they are arrested. We
have worked very hard in New Hampshire to keep our young people out of the system and | see this
as just another way of putting them back. | have been working at this for a very long time with all the
different groups that work with young people. And | feel that now you are saying “Well here we go
again”. This is another way, you’re back again. So this is the main reason why | was against the bill.
The other piece of that is statistics that | didn’t hear until tonight was 39.9% of the children are
purchasing it themselves. So in my opinion we should be looking at the establishments, educating our
children more, there are other ways | think we could have done that besides this. And | am going to
leave it at that because I’ve talked about it enough and I’ve heard enough from a lot of people and
that’s my take on that.
Alderman Lopez
| think if we serve people in a lower economic bracket then Needham and people who have more
diverse backgrounds then we have just as much right and responsibility as Aldermen to represent
them in a way that accurately represents their best interests given the data and the information that we
have. So | was opposed to this in the Committee meeting, the amendment, because | felt that we
wouldn’t be doing the best job that we could with it by removing the possession and creating a
scenario as was described in Public Comment where someone could buy in Hudson and just possess
it in Nashua, even if they couldn’t purchase it in Nashua. However, it was pointed out to me in the
intermediate week by a constituent that if the State does do its job and does move this forward then
that’s a mute point because you won't be able to buy it anywhere in New Hampshire. You also
wouldn’t be able to buy it in Maine; people wouldn’t be coming up from Massachusetts to buy it here.
So that objection which was the primary piece that | objected to in the amendment, if | put a little bit of
faith in the State, then | don’t have that objection. I’m not 100% sold on the State doing it, because we
do have a record of waiting until the last minute to do everything as was described with the alcohol.
We know 21 at this point is a norm that everyone can tolerate and that it does make a difference in the
lives of people who are younger. Sure there are always underage parties but they are not going to the
bar and they are not picking them up in stores; it does make a difference.
At the Federal Level, the Federal Minimum Wage is still $7.25 like I’m not going to, | don’t see them
quickly moving on anything. | do see more and more States taking over, so | think it may end up being
a State-run initiative but every movement has to start with somebody who steps forward and says “I
can’t do everything but | can do something” and being willing to do what they can do. | think the
amendment does remove or at least provides an alternative to the fines in the form of the smoking
cessation class. The grandfathering, again, in my opinion if we can do something we should do it. If
we are going to enforce or create the ordinance we should just go all in and say 21 and make it very
clear. But again the grandfathering doesn’t matter if the State takes the initiative and moves forward
with this. So | would support either bill.
