WATCH: Petitioners Can’t Sink Concord’s Bottled Water Bylaw

The rude bridge still stands where it ached the flood here in Concord, but it’s now become a landmark with parking lots off Liberty and Monument streets. And gone are the embattled farmers, replaced over time by new generations of progressive thinkers with different causes.

It’s a different town now, but the revolutionary spirit remains.

At a special Town Meeting last night, Concord voters shot down a bid to repeal the community’s bylaw banning the sale of unflavored, unenhanced drinking water in single-serve PET plastic bottles of one liter or less. This one probably won’t be heard ‘round the world, but it was third time in a year-and-a-half that voters have supported the so-called “bottle ban.”

Unlike the two votes prior—both of which were decided by a margin of .903 percent—this one wasn’t even close. One glance at the “electric orange” voting sheets filling the air inside the auditorium, cafeteria and gymnasium at Concord-Carlisle High School and they knew.

“The overwhelming vote this time, in all three halls, is a negative vote on Article 3,” said Town Moderator Eric Van Loon, proclaiming the repeal’s defeat to applause. 

Earlier, Jean Hill, the octogenarian who first introduced the bottle ban back in 2010, stood at a microphone to speak against the repeal.

“Overturning the ban will help no one but the bottlers and the people who know all about their rights as citizens but nothing about their obligations to keep the planet Earth safe from the catastrophic effects of Global Warming,” said Hill. “Let’s stand up for our children and grandchildren again and protect them from the effects of Global Warming.”

<<< Watch the videos above to hear Hill's full remarks and see Van Loon call the vote. >>> 

If that’s what Concordians are doing when they vote to support the town’s bottled water bylaw, then that’s what more than 1,000 of them did on Wednesday night. 

However, opponents of the bylaw—including Mike Been, the petitioner who sought to repeal it at special Town Meeting—charge that the “ban” is a purely symbolic gesture that comes at the expense of local residents, businesses and tourists who cannot buy or sell single-serve plastic bottles of drinking water.

"I believe that the bylaw that bans the sale of the most healthy beverage choice in Concord does not make sense," Benn told Patch earlier this year. "It does not solve any particular problems, yet it hurts residents, local merchants, and tourists." 

‘Bottle Ban’ Background

In fact, the Dec. 4 special Town Meeting in the past four years that some form of the water bottle bylaw has gone before Concord Town Meeting for a vote.

Hill’s initial article passed in 2010, but it was tossed out by the Attorney General’s office because it was not written as a bylaw and would have been unenforceable. In 2011, Concord Town Meeting voted down Hill’s second attempt, but members did approve a resolution to educate residents about environmental impacts of bottled water.

And then last year, in 2012, Hill teamed up with Concord On Tap campaign manager Jill Appel, and their effort managed to get the bottle bylaw passed by a slim margin. The AG’s office upheld the bylaw in September 2012 and it took effect on Jan. 1, 2013.

In the months since then, residents and businesses have adjusted to the bylaw, with the help of Concord on Tap. And in April, the bottle bylaw narrowly survived an initial attempt to repeal it, led by resident Robin Garrison and a “Free the Water” campaign.

It’s unclear whether special Town Meeting’s refusal to repeal the bottled water bylaw will be the last attempt to sink the ban, but the vote was Concord’s clearest action yet in support of it.