NORWICH – A year after the City of Norwich Common Council adopted a tobacco-free park policy in city limits, Reality Check youth from Norwich High School (NHS) paid a visit to Kiwanis Park to evaluate how effective the policy has been so far.

Reality Check youth visited Kiwanis Park – located off of Rexford and River Streets – last Thursday to do a sweep of the area, flagging all of the individual cigarette butts in sight.

To the students' delight, they flagged only 101 cigarette butts throughout the entire park––76 percent less tobacco litter than last year.

"It looks like it's been getting a lot better," said Reality Check member Britney Blackledge. "It's still not good, but it's way better than last time."

The voluntary policy was adopted by the city council in September 2016 after Coordinator of Tobacco-Free Cortland, Chenango, and Tompkins Counties Rose Walsh presented evidence showing that the city's parks were littered with tobacco products.

Walsh noted to the council that some city parks, like Kiwanis Park and South Broad Street Park, were excessively littered, but other parks, like on Borden Avenue, weren't as bad. She hypothesized this was because the park on Borden Avenue had anti-smoking signs and the other parks did not.