The Raleigh City Council is considering a recommendation from the Parks board to ban smoking in city parks. Ray Martin of the News and Observer wrote a story about it that ran today.
My quote:
Mark Turner, vice chairman of the board who presided over that meeting, said littering was the board’s chief concern.
“We don’t have the resources to clean up all the cigarettes,” Turner said. “If people can’t be responsible, this has to take effect.
“I think there’s also a big health benefit of the ban, but I’m the kind of guy who does not like making health decisions for other people.”
Considering the circumstances I’m pleased with the interview. Ray caught me literally minutes before we walked out of the house for our New Year’s trip. I was racing around to find last minute items as I talked with him. I’m surprised I sounded somewhat coherent.
One thing I would like to point out is that for this issue it was about litter for me. Other board members might have different concerns but for me it was litter. Ray writes that “littering is the board’s chief concern,” but I don’t know that to be the case. I was only speaking for myself and I tried to make that clear.
Since the story ran today I’ve spoken with News14 Carolina and WPTF. We’ll see how those turn out.