Board of Aldermen 05-14-2019 Page 25
people but the fact that if they distribute it to their friend or anyone they are still going to have the same
issue that they had, had they had possession.
Alderman Schmidt
Thank you Madam President. Let me start by saying | absolutely hate smoking. At 14 | walked into
the girl’s room at the skating rink and that was it, | was stuck for 30 years. | can’t walk by a smoker on
a sidewalk without gagging, without choking, it is asthma at this point, I’m very lucky that’s all it is. If
this could stop children from smoking | think that would be absolutely stunning. However, | do not
want to see children punished for this. | do not want to see that; that is the wrong way to go about this.
Sellers should be punished if they are going to be selling to underage, there’s no question in mind
there should even be those underage kids that go into your shops and try to trap you and you should
be punished severely for that because you can’t start kids on tobacco and expect them to wind up
living in the end. So that would have to come out for me. | certainly can’t vote for this in any way. |
also think that it’s very unfair to our local businesses. | don’t like that you sell cigarettes, but | think it’s
unfair because | think the people who are 22 are going to go out as well, out of the City.
The other thing that is if we do this up at the State, we can actually increase the tax on this, we can
increase the tax and that money can go to the schools to do presentations that will help kids
understand why smoking is bad. Bad, bad, bad. | can’t support this. Thank you.
Alderman Lopez
To some points that were made earlier | just want to point out that it already is a crime for someone
who is 18 to distribute to someone who is not 18. And the argument that keeps coming up in public
comment and in the previous committee meeting was that the schools should be fining kids. | don’t
entirely agree with that because | feel like if you’re in school you are supposed to be there for
education. The problem needs to be interdicted, things need to be confiscated, but | am in agreement
with Alderman Gathright that fining children is not exactly going to be effective, it’s probably just going
to trickle up to their parents. So those are already on the field; the difference is that this was
precipitated by the statistical evidence that 18 and 19 year olds are the easiest way for kids who are
14, 15, and 16 to get cigarettes or you know tobacco products. They can still e-cigarettes, they can
still get vape products, depending on how they buy them and where because that legislation hasn’t
come in yet. So | think that’s a little bit of a red herring when it comes to the study that they can still
purchase themselves legally, this would close that too and it would make sure that they can’t purchase
at least e-cigarettes if tobacco products are associated with them.
| would also just make a point, it was brought up in public comment that tobacco can be put in the e-
juice, yeah, so can weed, doesn’t mean you shouldn't try to stop them.
Alderman Dowd
Just a couple quick things. One it surprises me that not a single State Rep in this Chamber will
support this bill yet nothing is being done in Concord. The head of the Senate has said they are
waiting to see what the cities do. My way of thinking is that it will never get passed, because we’ve got
a sample of 100% here saying that they don’t agree with it; they’ll pass it at the State level but they are
not.
The other thing is last night on a completely separate decision there was a Rep from Hudson that said
“we are just waiting for Nashua to take action on this other event”. So Hudson, Hollis and Brookline
and all the cities are probably waiting to see what Nashua does and will do the same thing and maybe
then the State will act. There are numerous States in the Country that have already done this
including several surrounding us. At the National level they are looking to pass this law. If we don’t
take action | don’t see any action being taken anywhere and | think we need to move the needle.
