{"id":2683,"date":"2014-11-23T02:17:53","date_gmt":"2014-11-23T02:17:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/?p=2683"},"modified":"2014-11-23T02:18:17","modified_gmt":"2014-11-23T02:18:17","slug":"westminster-mass-drops-bad-idea-to-ban-all-tobacco-sales","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/?p=2683","title":{"rendered":"Westminster, Mass., drops bad idea to ban all tobacco sales"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"no<\/a><\/p>\n

Well, I saw this coming from a mile away.<\/p>\n

Westminster, Mass., which came up with a proposal to ban<\/a> all tobacco sales within town limits, dropped the whole thing<\/a> after a huge uproar, both from a petition opposing it and a throng of people who showed up at the town’s board of health meeting that grew so heated it was brought to a halt 20 minutes after it started.<\/p>\n

At a follow-up meeting this week, the health board voted (predictably, IMO) 2-1 to table the idea.<\/p>\n

The objections didn’t necessarily come from smokers, but from local merchants and civil libertarians, who believed the move was too much of a government intrusion into private lives and personal decisions.<\/p>\n

It was a bad idea, I mean, because of nothing else, all it would have \u00a0accomplishes was forcing people to drive to some other town five or 10 miles away to get their cigarettes. It wouldn’t have stopped anyone from smoking, it would’ve just wasted gas. Not to mention all the litigation the town likely would have been hit with.<\/p>\n

I’m all for doing all that can be done to crack down on tobacco — within reason.\u00a0This wasn’t reasonable. It wasn’t practical.<\/p>\n

In the words of a local merchant:<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cThey (the health board) really saw the town was overwhelmingly against it,\u201d said Joe Serio, the owner and pharmacist at the Westminster Pharmacy, which sells cigarettes.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat upset everyone was that we felt like we didn\u2019t have a say,\u201d said Mr. Serio, who attended Wednesday\u2019s meeting. \u201cBut this didn\u2019t divide the town \u2014 it united us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr. Serio said the board understood that news of the proposal had put new pressures on everyone.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was obvious that the board wouldn\u2019t meet again without a large contingency of townspeople there,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd there was a tremendous demand that being in the national spotlight put on us \u2014 the volume of phone calls, mail, emails, the news media that came in. After a while, you have to get back to business.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Well, I saw this coming from a mile away. Westminster, Mass., which came up with a proposal to ban all tobacco sales within town limits, dropped the whole thing after a huge uproar, both from a petition opposing it and a throng of people who showed up at the town’s board of health meeting that … Continue reading Westminster, Mass., drops bad idea to ban all tobacco sales<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2684,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[224,365],"tags":[374,696],"class_list":["post-2683","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tobacco-sales","category-westminster","tag-tobacco-ban","tag-westminster"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/no-tobacco.jpg?fit=238%2C212&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4hpEa-Hh","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2656,"url":"https:\/\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/?p=2656","url_meta":{"origin":2683,"position":0},"title":"Westminster, Mass., goes bonkers over proposed ban on tobacco sales","author":"Pepe Lepew","date":"November 19, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"OK, I fully expected this hearing to be heated, but even this blew me away. The town of Westminster, Massachusetts, has proposed banning all tobacco sales within town limits. It's understandably a controversial idea. Well, the hearing\u00a0got so whack, it had to be stopped 20 minutes after it started. 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