Smoking Issue Resolved at Meeting

A handful of Carriage Drive residents met with Raleigh General Hospital CEO Alan Peters and Director of Marketing Kevin McGraw on Tuesday for a brainstorming session to address the public safety issue of Viceroy smokers loitering in the roadway. The situation has been a problem since the hospital campus went smoke-free two years ago, but RGH officials hope it is now a thing of the past as the meeting produced a solution that all parties can be happy with, McGraw explained. “We had a good meeting. The group came by, and we walked the property, and we feel we have found a workable solution to address the safety issue and keep people out of the streets,” he said. “The plan is to get a contractor in to look at a specific area that would allow us to cut out a pad and put a retaining wall in there that will remove the folks who choose to use tobacco off of the street.” McGraw said no specific time table has been set for the RGH-financed project, but he added the hospital will look into hiring a contractor in the coming weeks. “We want to move quickly on this. The consensus of the group is that this is a very effective solution to the problem,” he said. Bob Bower, a Carriage Drive resident and owner of Carriage Drive Car Co., praised Peters and RGH. “RGH has really bent over backward to help, and the new CEO is just great,” he said. “Some other residents of our neighborhood have tried with past CEOs to get a solution to this problem without any success, and this new CEO, Alan Peters, has just really made himself available to hear our concerns, and I feel we have reached a good solution that we can all be happy with. “This will get the smokers off the street, give them an area to smoke and make it better for everyone involved. We came up with a good solution for everyone, even people with disabilities, since this will make it easier for them to maneuver as well,” Bowers added.