AUGUSTA — Lighting up a cigarette while waiting for Junior and his or her fellow students to get on the bus soon will be illegal in Augusta, as city councilors voted Thursday to ban smoking at all designated school bus stops.

However, an exception was added to the ordinance for school bus stops when the children at the bus stop are all from the same family.

Thus parents, and other adults, still will be able to smoke at the end of their own driveway if only their children are picked up there.

An incident involving an adult smoking at a school bus stop used by children with health problems prompted city officials to expand a ban enacted last year on smoking on most city and school property to include officially designated school bus stops.

City Councilor Dan Emery proposed the change after receiving an email from the parents of two youths affected by an adult smoking at their bus stop. The smoker apparently is a parent of another student who uses the same bus stop. One student has asthma, the other cystic fibrosis; and both, their parents said, suffer when in the presence of someone smoking. The students’ parents told city officials they asked the adult to stop smoking at the bus stop, but the smoker refused.

City Councilor Dan Emery proposed the change after receiving an email from the parents of two youths affected by an adult smoking at their bus stop. The smoker apparently is a parent of another student who uses the same bus stop. One student has asthma, the other cystic fibrosis; and both, their parents said, suffer when in the presence of someone smoking. The students’ parents told city officials they asked the adult to stop smoking at the bus stop, but the smoker refused.

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“The only reason this is here is because of some grossly insensitive individual,” City Manager William Bridgeo said of the ordinance change. City Attorney Stephen Langsdorf said police will not be patrolling school bus stops to look for smokers. Rather, the new rule will give authorities the ability to warn someone to stop smoking if an incident such as the one that prompted the change comes up again.

City officials said they hope that won’t happen.

“I would hope this will be more of a community policing kind of thing, where you raise awareness with an ordinance like this and, hopefully it leads to awareness, and people police themselves,” Councilor David Rollins said. “Public health and the welfare of children is part of our responsibility.”

The change bans smoking within 20 feet of designated school bus stops, and the designated stops will be posted on the school department’s website.

The city’s tobacco ordinance already bans smoking and all other forms of tobacco use at city parks, playgrounds, athletic fields, schools and most other city and school property.

Police Chief Robert Gregoire said incidents of adults smoking at school bus stops are rare and most people are considerate.

Mayor William Stokes said he received an inquiry about the ordinance change from someone in California who was interested in adopting something similar there. No members of the public spoke out about the change Thursday or at a prior meeting at which it was discussed.

 


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