The Board of Selectmen (BOS) unanimously approved the adoption of a no-smoking resolution at a special town meeting on June 13 that applies to all public parks and recreational areas in town.

The adoption of the resolution was almost a year in the making, as the official language of the new public safety law was brought up at meetings held by the Parks and Recreation Committee (PRC) and the BOS in August 2022.

According to PRC meeting minutes dated Aug. 3, 2022, the commission had been discussing an action to ban smoking in park areas for several months. While smoking was banned at Plattwood Park Beach and there were restrictions in other public facilities, smoking was still allowed in designated areas.

The minutes read that “after much discussion, the commission agreed that it is the intent of the Parks and Recreation Commission of the Town of Deep River to regulate the location where tobacco products, nicotine products, and cannabis products are used within the town’s parks and recreational areas in order to protect public health and safety.”

The public health angle of the intent came into focus with the committee also having the intent “to prevent exposure of second-hand smoke and vapor of tobacco, nicotine and cannabis products to its citizens and to reduce littering in the parks and recreational areas.”

The resolution landed on the discussion desk of the BOS at its meeting later that month on June 23 and contains the official language that was officially adopted almost a year later at the recent town meeting.

The resolution prevents the use and possession of a “lighted cigarette, cigar, cigarillo, pipe, or powered-on vaporize device” and of a “cannabis-type substance including marijuana, as defined in Connecticut General Statutes Section 21a-240, in any form in or upon any park, playground, recreation area, athletic fields, trail, boat launch, beach, or area of assembly owned, leased or controlled by the Town of Deep River and the Deep River Parks and Recreation Commission.” Other town-owned properties subject to the law include all municipal buildings.

Within those prevented areas of use and possession still includes Plattwood Park, as well as the Town Landing and the boat launch facility. These and other prevented areas are to be designated by the BOS “provided however, that signs are posted in the area such as to reasonably warn persons that the area is subject to this ‘No Smoking’ ordinance,” reads the resolution.

The adoption of the law marks a change to the language of the town’s Section 9 public safety ordinance. As such, “violation of this smoking ban shall constitute an infraction which will result in a fine and/or expulsion from the public facility.”