BY DARRELL HALEN
Selectmen could soon snuff out smoking at Windham’s town beach.
In a 3-2 vote, selectmen decided during their May 14 meeting to draft a policy to ban smoking at the beach.
Residents can weigh in on the idea during a public hearing that will be part of the selectmen’s Monday, May 21, meeting, before the board votes whether to approve it.
While selectmen Bruce Breton, Dennis Senibaldi and Margaret Crisler supported the ban, Roger Hohenberger and Alan Carpenter favored establishing a designated smoking area at the beach instead.
“If we have 10 percent of our residents who smoke, they’re still our residents, they still pay taxes, and they have the right to use our beach,” said Carpenter, a former smoker. “That’s not my preferred way of enjoying it. This is not only America, this is New Hampshire, and if they want to do that to themselves, they have the right to.”
Last month, Recreation Coordinator Cheryl Haas suggested that a designated area be established before the beach opens June 9.
Selectmen decided they would take up the issue of whether the town’s smoking policy, which regulates smoking at indoor facilities, should be broadened to open areas, such as the beach, parks, ball fields and other places.
During the May 14 meeting, Breton said he preferred to see a smoking ban on all town-owned recreational areas.
“It may not be a problem in Griffin Park, but it is an example we can set, and lead, and it won’t become a problem,” he said.
Much of the meeting’s discussion focused on the beach.
Haas told selectmen that her beach supervisor had informed her that she warns children not to put cigarette butts into their mouths and sandcastles.
Beth Lippold, a mother of four children and a member of the town’s recreation committee, spoke in favor of a beach ban. She voiced concern about children being exposed to secondhand smoke and possibly being burned by cigarettes.
“I don’t think it’s fair to the little kids who are not paying attention, running around,” she said.
Lippold was one of only a few residents who attended the meeting, despite public interest in the subject. Breton said he had received many phone calls from residents.
Carpenter, the board’s chairman, encouraged his colleagues to focus their attention on the beach, saying he doesn’t believe there’s a problem at Griffin Park and ball fields.
At baseball games, he said, a smoker can move away from other spectators and still watch the game.
At the beach, however, families “set up camp” with their blankets. If there there is someone nearby “burning up a pack of Marlboros,” he said, the family must move or ask the smoker to stop.
Hohenberger said he favored a restricted area for the beach, but expressed concern the town could be going down a “slippery slope.”
“As much as I don’t condone smoking around children, I also don’t condone trying to legislate lifestyles,” he said. “I think we’re really pushing it here. If this is totally about health, there are so many other things we should probably look at legislating – like trans-fats.”
Senibaldi replied that “you don’t die of second-hand french fry inhaling.”
“It’s not social engineering,” he later added. “It’s keeping kids safe.”
The May 21 meeting will be held in the town’s planning department room.