In January, the Nashua Planning Board approved, on a 4-2 vote, businessman Zafar Chaudhary’s change-of-use application that will allow him to move forward with his plan to turn the Poor Pierre’s building into a “smoke shop,” a move that has caused much concern in the Gate City.

Poor Pierre’s, which was located at 303 Main St. in downtown Nashua, is directly in front of the Nashua Adult Learning Center and not far from Elm Street Middle School. The ALC serves clients ranging in age from toddlers on up.

Central to opponents’ concerns is the proposed smoke shop’s close proximity to the

center’s playground, which puts the store and its customers coming and going in view of children as young as 2-5 years old.

Secondary concerns include the visibility of the shop to the scores of middle-school age kids who walk by the store on their way to and from Elm Street Middle, and increased traffic they say will be compounded by customers making left-hand turns out of the shop’s parking lot just yards from the already busy intersection of Main and Lake streets.

While the applicant, who was joined at the Planning Board meeting by the project manager, Katherine Weiss, of Bedford Design Consultants, agreed to some stipulations, such as opening no earlier than 9 a.m., working with ALC officials to upgrade fencing, and improving the portions of the parking lot by creating some green space, several opponents of the project still raised concerns.

Among them was ALC director Carol Baldwin, who noted that many of the agency’s teenage clients are “coping with other challenges, such as poverty or homelessness, and many lack a strong parent, making them more susceptible to the lure of advertising – particularly for tobacco products,” she said. Baldwin cited studies that she said show accessibility and advertising are primary factors associated with youth tobacco use.

We couldn’t agree more with Baldwin and other opponents. Vaping and smoking both have been proven to harm one’s health, and dangling that temptation in front of susceptible youth is wrong. While we are all for the opening of new small businesses, there certainly must be a location that would better suit the citizens of this great city.

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