Published: November 29, 2006 11:12 pm      

Hospital neighbors: We don’t want your smokers

ASHLAND — Two months after Ashland enacted an ordinance designating King’s Daughters Medical Center’s campus a smoke-free area, residents say they are fed up with smokers using their neighborhood as an ashtray.

The ordinance, approved in August and enacted with Ashland’s citywide smoke-free ordinance, created a 20-foot no-smoking perimeter around all of KDMC’s buildings in the city. As a result, residents complain, smokers have invaded their sidewalks, yards, and alleys to comply with the measure.

And they are leaving their cigarette butts — hundreds of them.

The problem has gotten so bad, residents say, it has changed the very character of the neighborhood.

“It was a nice quiet little neighborhood and now it’s not,” said Clay Wills, a resident of the 2300 block of Lexington Avenue. “It’s crazy how many cigarette butts are out there.”

At all hours of the day and night, he said, hospital staff, visitors and patients can be found lining the sidewalks of 23rd Street and Hilton Avenue and in the alley between 23rd and 24th streets.

“It’s not just the smoking issue; it’s the privacy issue. We have no privacy now. I’m not able to let my daughter go out and ride her bicycle up and down the alley without there being a bunch of strangers smoking,” Wills said.

Neighbor Doug Davis of the 2300 block of Hilton Avenue agreed. “There are so many doing it it’s not a private neighborhood like it used to be. It’s not as quiet as it used to be.”

It is also not as clean.

Both Davis and Wills said they frequently sweep up butts only to find them quickly replaced.

Davis said Wednesday he swept in front of his home at 8 a.m. At 2:30 p.m., dozens of fresh butts could be seen littering the sidewalk and spilling into his driveway.

“Their policy is all about protecting their employees and the general public from secondhand smoke,” Wills said. “There is a way for the hospital to handle their problem without shoving it onto us. They’ve taken their problem and put it in my back yard.”

“I think the hospital ought to provide a place or give their employees an ultimatum,” Davis said.

Wills suggested KDMC reinstate its policy of allowing smoking at kiosks inside the hospital’s Lexington Avenue and 23rd Street parking facilities.

KDMC spokesman Tom Dearing said the hospital will work in conjunction with the city to address neighbors’ concerns.

“We want to be good neighbors and we’re looking at how we can look at this concern. We’re proud to promote a tobacco-free environment at KDMC and in the City of Ashland. Since going tobacco-free at the end of September we’ve had very few problems and everyone is understanding of why we’re taking this stand,” he said.

Dearing added the hospital also changed its policy so that employees are no longer allowed to go off-site to smoke. “So we know it’s not them,” he said. “We’re sure it’s not the employees. Even when we see visitors going over there we strongly encourage them to remain on public property.”

At the other end of the hospital’s campus, Central Park is also experiencing some side effects from an influx of smokers.

Sean Murray, director of parks and recreation, said the volume of smokers and the trash they create is causing some safety concerns. “We’re going out to pick up the trash as much as possible, to clean up the receptacles and the butts on the ground,” he said.

“We’re looking at options to help alleviate the problem to find a mutually beneficial solution for everyone involved.”