Providence businesses push for expansion on city’s smoking ban

March 17, 2016 6:18 pm

By Ana Bottary

abottary@abc6.com

@anabottary

If you take a walk down near Kennedy Plaza there is no shortage of people smoking cigarettes, despite an ordinance passed last year banning people from smoking there as well as Burnside Park just across the street. Smokers are now migrating towards the sidewalks surrounding Kennedy Plaza. It’s something business owners whose buildings face the plaza are not happy about.

"Now everyone is crossing the street from the park and just going in front of the office buildings and all they do is create a bigger problem," says Joe Paolino, who rents office space in a building facing Kennedy Plaza.

Paolino says between crowded sidewalks and second hand smoke, it’s disruptive. Wednesday night, the City Council Ordinance Committee discussed the issue. Councilman Terrance Hassett proposed changing the language of the ordinance to expand the current non-smoking space. Paolino has a few suggestions of his own.

“Let them go back into the park to smoke and don’t bother anybody or don’t transfer the problem to us. Make it to all of Kennedy Plaza and the surrounding streets to do away with public smoking," he says.

ABC6 News caught up with a few people at Kennedy Plaza who agree with expanding the non-smoking area.

"They should have a smoking ban down here in the plaza because they’re suppose to be 25 feet away from boarding the busses. People are getting up to the doors on the busses, they’re blowing the smoke in the bus, and it’s just a dirty habit," says Gerard Leblanc.

"The air would be fresher. You wouldn’t have so much cloudy smoke. You wouldn’t have a lot of the riffraff around either," says Debra Ismail.

But, not all were keen on the idea.

"I think that they have banned smoking pretty much everywhere else down here and this is the last bit of hope I’ve got.”