When the state’s new cigarette law sent smokers outside, their cigarette butts went with them.
It’s an unintended consequence, of course, but many sidewalks and parking lots now look like ashtrays. So, now that indoor spaces are smoke-free, for the most part, it’s time to concentrate on making our outdoor spaces butt-free.
Toward that end, downtown Everett is already firing up a solution.
Sue Strickland, the services manager for the Downtown Everett Association, which manages Everett’s business improvement area and the Everpark Garage, confirms that clean-up crews are sweeping up more cigarette butts than ever before. The logical fix: Offer more ashtrays so smokers can be responsible, non-littering citizens. So the DEA/BIA is purchasing an additional 36 stone ash urns to be placed in the business improvement area.
The DEA/BIA’s maintenance contractor has identified where the urns should go and will install 12 a month over three months. Strickland said Hewitt Avenue, which has seen a great increase in restaurants recently, will be a primary target. So will the area around the Events Center. The DEA is contributing a portion of its management fee revenue from the Everpark Garage to pay for the new urns.
The DEA deserves kudos for recognizing the butt problem and quickly working to fix it. Downtown Everett is on the way up in so many ways and does not need or deserve some stinky problem to drag its progress down.
If sidewalks within the BIA are bad with butts, the areas outside are obviously worse.
The new law definitely makes smokers feel picked on, but it’s no excuse for the mounds of cigarette butts people encounter in some areas. It’s time for businesses to work with their employees to offer an area to smoke, complete with ashtrays. City sidewalks and streets outside a business are not acceptable ashtrays.
Businesses (and individuals) have options. They can ask employees to smoke in their cars, and use the car ashtray. They can offer stop-smoking classes. Businesses that maintain cleanliness outside their buildings can encourage nearby butt-producing businesses to get on board, for the benefit of all. Grocery stores, which have long offered shoppers an ashtray near the door before they enter, need only move those ashtrays 25 feet from the entrances. That way, smokers who want to comply with the 25-foot rule won’t stomp out their cigarette in the parking lot.
With everyone doing their part, we can kick the butt problem.
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