Smoking ban on Commons finds middle ground

The map of Rochester Commons shows where smoking will be allowed, and where it won't. (Staff graphic)

ROCHESTER - Quickly, with little fanfare and on a voice vote, the Rochester City Council on Tuesday enacted a partial ban on smoking on the Rochester Commons.

The area banned extends from a walkway at the Commons midpoint and extends to South Main Street, encompassing the gazebo and playground area.

Deputy Mayor and Councilor A. Raymond Varney Jr. said he was pleased with the ban and doesn’t think enforcement will be an issue.

“We have a ban on dogs on the Commons and people respect that, and I think smokers will do the same thing,” Varney said today. “They’ll abide by the rules.”

Mayor T.J. Jean declared the motion passed after a voice vote in which a few of the 12 councilors did vote in opposition.

Varney said the voice vote and the ordinance’s passage were an easy call.

“We had a citizen there with 98 signatures (in favor of the ban) she’d collected very quickly,” Varney said. “The ban just made sense.”

Aurora Farrell, a city resident who collected the signatures, said she has a 2-year-old daughter that she sometimes has to take home from the playground because smokers won’t leave the area.

She also said there were cigarette butts all over the ground, which was disgusting.

City Manager Dan Fitzpatrick was instructed to have cigarette disposal stations set up on the half of the Commons on which smoking is still allowed.