Worcester Business Journal

28 Worcester Business Journal • April 13, 2015 www.wbjournal.com F or seasoned smokers, e-cigarettes that release nicotine through vapor instead of smoke provide a potential path to kicking the habit over competing smoking cessation aides, such as nicotine gum and patches. But Attorney General Maura Healey and others say e-cigarettes pose addiction dangers quite similar to those of tobacco products, which is why she has proposed a statewide ban on selling e-cigarettes to minors under the age of 18. Our readers agree with her, based on the results of our poll from the week of March 30. Do you support the Massachusetts attorney general's proposal to ban the sale of e-cigarettes to minors? Snuff out e-cigarettes for minors Best Advertising Agency Best Web Design Firm Proud Winner of Two 2015 Best of Business Awards COMMENTS: -RLQWKH:%-·V /LQNHG,QGLVFXVVLRQ JURXSE\VFDQQLQJ WKHFRGHWRWKHOHIW RQ\RXUVPDUWSKRQH To scan the code, you need the NeoReader. Visit get.neoreader.com to download it onto your phone. Want to participate in the conversation? A fter two weeks of delays, the Worcester City Council last week approved a deal to sell the former county courthouse to a New Hampshire developer for $1.2 million. But the deal now includes language that calls for, among other things, the hiring of at least half the construction workforce by contractors and subcontractors from within a 30-mile radius. The language was inserted after community and labor advocates pressed the council to review the deal. Just hours before the council's vote, we posed this question: Do you believe the Worcester City Council should attach conditions beyond the deal the city administration already cut with a private developer to sell the former county courthouse? Approve the courthouse deal without conditions COMMENTS: F L A S H P O L L T A L K B A C K Yes 83% "Any conditions could cause a quality developer, such as Brady Sullivan, to walk away from a deal that is good for … Worcester. That would not make good sense." No 10% No 75% "Nicotine addiction is dangerous whether in the form of smoke or an e-cigarette." Not sure 7% Yes 24% "Worcester residents should be getting good local jobs out of this deal and others like it." "This is a sale to a private company. There should be no additional conditions put on this deal." PARCC? NO, PARK IT! An online reader responded to a recent report about the support of a group of Massachusetts teachers that recommended the state scrap the MCAS test as a measure of student readiness and adopt the Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers, or PARCC, which measures students against Common Core, a multi-state set of educational standards Massachusetts adopted in 2010. "This farce of a process to determine whether or not Massachusetts schools should scrap MCAS and adopt PARCC continues." Online reader David McGeney OLYMPICS? NO-LYMPICS? The organizers behind Boston's bid to host the Olympic Games has heard many objections to the use of public funds to pay for cost overruns. Here are two in response to a question on our LinkedIn page about whether the state should kick in tax money to help: "No tax money, and no Olympics in MA." LinkedIn group member Donna Caissie "Anyone examining the history of the Olympic Games with an open mind cannot help but be struck by most every one of these 'events' has been a financial disaster." LinkedIn group member Matt LaBarre "A drug is a drug is a drug. As long as the ban is an application of existing law, then the AG must do her job." "Minors will acquire the product regardless of whether they can purchase them or not. Same thing with cigarettes." Not sure - 1%

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