Allan Appel Photo
Maria Quinonez said she’ll abide by an imminent new law banning smoking in the park, but that won’t get her to quit.
“It won’t stop me from smoking on the sidewalk,” the Gateway Community College student said as she lit up a long white filtered cigarette and took in the sun at Quinnipiac River Park. If the law is passed, Quinonez said she’d abide by it. “I’ll smoke on the sidewalk and by the time I get here, I’ll have had a nice smoke.”
Quinonez was among the Fair Haven park users weighing in after a Board of Alders committee this week unanimously approved a proposed new law to ban outdoor smoking at public parks, playgrounds, and school grounds. The bill, which appears headed for passage by the full board, is aimed at protecting children’s health, along with the hope of encouraging smokers to break the habit.
The ban did not meet much resistance, though some people suggested that officials should be tackling bigger park menaces, like broken glass.
Near Qinonez, Mitch Longley was picking up some bottles and other litter from the bright green expanse. He pronounced the proposed ban “great.”
“I have never smoked a day in my life,” he said. “I hate the smell of it or to be around it.”
Representative square of ground near the dugout at Criscuolo Park.
Over at Criscuolo Park, at James and Chapel streets, the annual field day for second and third-graders from the Cold Spring School, along with their parents, was in full swing.
As James Seward watched his daughter Gwen’s excitement at having him watch her play, he expressed approval of the ban: “I think it would be great. You can see the cigarette buts on the ground where our kids are playing.”
The school’s director, Arati Pandit, agreed.
So did longtime fitness teacher Gerry McGuffin (pictured with second-grader Wyatt Sloan). McGuffin said that’s not the big park issue for him, though: “Our issue is glass, especially the cleanliness of the park after heavy weekend use.”
Second-hand smoke is not good for kids or anyone, McGuffin said. But she added that she and her charges are usually in the park alone, only with an occasional jogger or dog-walker around.
Two Eli Whitney Technical High School students, Naomi Vazquez and Melanie Fernandez, were sitting on a bench on the Chapel Street and talking animatedly. They also said they feel strongly that secondhand smoke is bad for kids, especially the many with asthma problems. At first Naomi said there should be an out-and-out ban on the habit in the parks and playgrounds.
Neither of them smokes. But Melanie added that smokers too should be able to indulge, in a designated area away from kids, Naomi came around to her friend’s more middle ground position. (The bill calls for designated smoking areas.)
Up James Street several blocks, John Martinez School sixth-grade teachers Chris Manemeit and Amy Paolini were shooting hoops with their kids in the large court and field area adjacent to the Mill River and English Station.
Manmeit said he considers the ban an excellent idea. Paolini pointed out that while the school uses the park for the upper grades, the facility is not the school’s but belongs to, as she put it, “Parks and Rec.”
She and Manmeit instigated clean-up activities of the park with their students, she said, because the city services, though present, were not sufficient. “Smoking is a problem, yes, but there’s a lot more [problems] like a homeless encampment, needles,” she added pointing to the bushes on the riverine side of the expanse.
The “Controllers” Don’t Understand
Up in Chatham Square Park on Clinton Street, four men were sitting on benches in the bright afternoon sun. Three were drinking from containers in paper bags. Two, including John S. (pictured) and James Conn (who did not want to be photographed), offered a different opinion.
“If you’re in an open space,the smoke dissipates quickly. It’s no big wow,” said John S.
Conn said that the “controllers,” that is, those making the laws, “don’t understand the stress” that makes some people smoke.
Even if the law is passed by the full board, “I’m gonna smoke,” Conn declared. “The controllers don’t understand.”
He said that when kids come to play in the park, he and his friends move away from the central bench area and smoke in a self-designated more remote section of the park.
“Why is nobody stopping the manufacturers that are creating the stuff that’s killing?” he asked as he took a drag on his cigarette.