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Community Corner

Wyckoff Park Smoking Ban Tabled

The township committee voted Monday night to shelve a proposed smoking ban in Wyckoff's public parks, in order to give the ordinance further consideration.

The Wyckoff Township Committee voted unanimously Monday night to table an expanded smoking ban in public parks, opting to give the ordinance further consideration, committee members said.

Introduced at a meeting two weeks ago, the ordinance would have enforced smoke-free zones in public parks and around municipal buildings.

"It would be really great to have smoking outside spectator areas and away from kids," said Committeeman Brian Scanlan, a former sports coach who said he proposed the ordinance after the Health and Recreation boards indicated support.

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But after consideration at a meeting Monday night, members of the committee raised issues with the ordinance, citing ambiguities with the scope of the ban.

"The current ordinance needs to be looked at and defined so if passed it could be interpreted by our police department," Committeeman Kevin Rooney said, adding that he believed enforcing the ordinance would pose problems in its current form.

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According to Rooney, a police study into publicizing the ordinance reported that at least 65 signs would be required to properly notify residents of where the ban would be enforced, and the committee has not yet accounted for those costs in its consideration of the ordinance.

"How do you enforce something that's not clear?" he said. "If you were to be at one of the parks right now, how would you know you can't smoke?"

Rooney added concerns that the current ban may be too strict, and could potentially be enforced on people smoking in their cars in parking lots adjacent to township parks.

"People that do smoke have rights, so we need to have a balance," he said.

Scanlan said one possibility could be to exempt areas of the parking lots from the ban, and that though he had hoped the ordinance could move forward Monday night, he's optimistic about the ban's legislative future.

"I think we'll arrive at a compromise that will allow smoking in some part of the park areas and keep it off the playing field," he said. "I had hoped we would have been able to resolve any issues [Monday] night during our discussion."

"It needs a little more work, that's all," Mayor Rudy Boonstra said.

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