Board of Aldermen 05-14-2019 Page 29
Alderman Jette
The purpose of doing this is to raise the age from 18 to 21. The State Law currently prohibits “no
person shall sell, give or furnish or cause or allow or procure to be sold, given or furnished tobacco
products, e-cigarettes or liquid nicotine to a minor’. Ok? So the State Law already prohibits a 16 year
old giving it to another 16 year old you know? So it’s already there, | mean what this was trying to do
was raise the age to 21. You know if we said “no person over 21 shall sell, distribute” I’m fine with
that, but it would still be, | guess it would allow people who are 20 to give a cigarette to someone who
is 19 but they couldn’t give to someone under 18, | mean that’s the current State Law. So | have no
problem with the change, | just want to point out that the current law that we have, the amendment
doesn’t really, it doesn’t make it illegal, it is already illegal for someone to give cigarettes to somebody
under 18. So saying or changing our thing to say it only applies to people over 21, you know, would
eliminate the 20 year old giving it to the 18 year old, but they still couldn’t give it to the younger kids.
That’s already illegal and that’s State Law, we are not changing that.
Alderman Clemons
Thank you. So | proposed this change and some of it came from myself, some of it came from
Alderman Jette and some of it came from Alderman Laws who is not here. Sometimes on these
things, what I’ve learned in this because you are always learning something you know? | used to think
and I’ve run on before many campaigns in the past that compromise is a great thing and itis. But
there are some issues where, and this is one of them, and I’ve learned this where it is just not possible.
There’s just too many what ifs and what have you’s and different scenarios and | don’t want a, | mean,
you could either pass this as it is all or nothing or as Alderman Klee had pointed out, at what point are
we watering this down to just why are we, we are basically, all we are saying is that you are not going
to be able to sell to somebody who is under the age of 21 basically in the City of Nashua. And at that
point, well why? So you know so | proposed this and | put feelers out there in the community. Now
certainly we’ve been contacted as Aldermen by constituents, | have. I’ve gotten many phone calls, e-
mails, even got a couple letters of people writing to me on both sides of the issue. They want it, they
don’t want it, they don’t want the compromise, they like the compromise. | put a post out there on the
Nashua Civic Sounding Board just to kind of get a feeler as well for this compromise, and | have to say
that it was 3 to 1 against it. And | have to say that of all of my talking to everybody that I’ve talked to
about this, it’s 3 to 1 against doing this.
Now the answers vary as to the reasons why, they are almost universal on the other side. So on the
one, it’s definitely a health issue and that’s what is cited to me and also that is going to stop youth
smoking or at least make it harder and | get that, it probably would. On the other side of the 3 to 1,
there are various things that are said, one is it is unenforceable, it is going to hurt those in the lower
socioeconomic groups which we have tried to address here, it’s not worth the City’s time, it’s not worth
the Police time, it is State issue, it is a freedom issue, it’s a liberty issue. You know 18 year olds are
adults, if you can carry a gun at 18 you should be able to smoke a cigarette. I’ve heard everything.
Even despite and this was out there, this was me saying to the public this is what | can present, what
do you think and 3 to 1. It was no. And yet my gut still tells me that it is probably in the interest of
those that are our youth to do this because | think that there is value there in it so long as we are not
violating anybody’s rights who is already got that right.
However, after having this discussion this evening, after having this discussion with the community,
seeing the chaos that this legislation has created just here in this chamber alone, | can’t do it, | can’t
support it, | tried, | tried my best. But you know sometimes you listen to what your constituents have to
say and you let them make the decision and on this one, you know, I’ve done my best, I’ve thrown my
best out there. But you know | am going to let my constituents talk to me and for the ones who have
contacted me, it is 3 to 1 against this, so | am going to vote no.
