Pack prices have doubled in the last decade. Nearly all public buildings and businesses are smoke-free, as are Saugerties parks. The community college campus is smoke-free. So is much of Uptown Kingston. Could Saugerties village streets be next?
Not unless hundreds ask for it, said Mayor William Murphy. Partition St. resident Donald Wiltsie, a former smoker, told the Village Board his asthma is inflamed by smokers of a neighboring apartment complex who convene outdoors because the landlord has banned it in the units.
“I might as well be out there smoking with them,” Wiltsie said.
He asked the board to consider banning loitering on the streets and sidewalks for the purpose of smoking.
“I’m not looking to ban smoking in the village, but just for common courtesy,” he said.
Trustee Jeannine Mayer lives on Jane St. She said she, too, has problems with smokers in her neighborhood, but her issue is cigarette butts as litter, not the smoke.
Mayor William Murphy asked who would enforce such a law, and Wiltsie opined that the police could do it.
Murphy said that maybe if 100 residents came to a meeting to support the idea, the board might look into it. But there would be no anti-smoking loitering law because one person wants it. Instead, the mayor said he’d talk to the landlord and see if something could be worked out.
Wiltsie said he would await the mayor’s report before deciding what to do next.
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