Source: Haverhill Gazette, 2002-03-07

EDITORIAL: Smoke-free eating places need patrons March 7 -- March 13, 2002

It's time for some leadership.

Mayor Guerin, take your wife out to dinner in Haverhill.

City councilors, please do likewise.

Drs. Carl Rosenbloom and Gene Grillo and Victor LaBranche, as members of the Board of Health, you should eat out in Haverhill at least three times a week for the next three months for ordering all of Haverhill's restaurants to go smoke-free.

Seriously.

The city just joined Andover, Methuen and lots of other communities with rules that prohibit smoking in eating places. None of the city's top brass tried to prevent the Board of Health from putting this rule into effect, so they must tacitly support it, at least. They should serve as role models and patronize Haverhill restaurants, as should members of the city's anti-tobacco establishment who fought for the change. No more skulking off to the Loop in Methuen or Newburyport or Portsmouth, N.H.

Haverhill restaurateurs resisted the change, of course. They fear losing business to eating places in other communities where the first choice on the menu is still smoking or nonsmoking. What they really worry about is not enough business, period. Restaurants in Haverhill lead a rather precarious life, especially downtown.

We wish to report, however, that dining out in Haverhill can be very fulfilling. Not only are the quality and prices good, but you are liable to run into somebody you haven't seen in a very long time and the drive home takes only a few minutes. The downtown could be better lit but it is quite safe, and you will find a parking spot unless you insist it be right at the front door. Washington-Wingate streets are fairly close to becoming the entertainment district that some envision downtown--overlain upon the historic district, overlain upon the cyber district. What's important is that there really are people walking around downtown on some evenings, anyway.

There are a half dozen respectable dining establishments in other parts of the city, including up on the New Hampshire border.

Try them all, on weekdays as well as the weekend, early and often, now that you no longer have to risk inhaling second-hand smoke.

Take the whole family along.