Divide In Concord

- Yes, I move that the town vote to ban the sale of water

in plastic bottles in Concord starting January 1st, 2011.

I want to discuss the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

That's way in the Pacific.

We're here in Concord.

Could you go...

- I know, but that's where the plastic bottles go.

Yep.

That's where they go.

And could you go on to the third one, please?

- I've returned with an article carefully written as a bylaw.

I ask for your support once again.

Ms. Hill.

Good evening.

Two years ago, I began this effort

because my grandson Mack told me about

the disastrous environmental effect

of empty plastic bottles.

- What's the problem with Concord right now?

- Yeah, there's a woman in town who has...

for the past three years, she's been trying to ban the sale

of bottled water.

Ban the sale of what?

- I know, I know it sounds crazy Dan, and I'm with you.

She wants to ban the sale of bottled water...

Bottled water?

Yes, bottled water.

- Hi, would you sign my petition?

Oh, I don't agree with that.

OK.

Well, thanks, anyhow.

Bye.

- I think of all towns where freedom should be protected,

I mean, Concord is where it should be protected.

I'm back with a bottle ban.

People sort of flee when they see me

because they know they're going to get a little sermonette.

Why in a town like Concord...

...when we recycle?

Go find another town in Massachusetts

where they're not doing a great job recycling.

Doesn't that make more sense than removing

the single most healthy beverage that's contained

in plastic on the market?

- Well, she has twins and she's pretty busy.

She's probably in the middle of giving them

one of their snacks.

OK, well, onward and upward.

I consider myself a warrior.

I live in Concord and I'm trying to get

plastic water bottles banned.

And warriors have to be prepared for any enemy.

Boy, it's a mess in there.

Looks like someone's just moved in.

I think I'll skip this one.

- These ideas that we can actually

have free choice in what we buy and how we shop,

they're under attack right now by one bill, one person.

She's a prophet.

People think prophets are crazy.

But honestly, over time, you think

they're less crazy because you realize

they're on to something.

I'm no prophet.

I'm the right person, and this is the right time.

My name is Eric Van Loon.

I'm the elected town moderator here in Concord.

Concord is a very special community in American history.

There were lots of reasons to be attracted to living in Concord.

- This cheese will reportedly be the largest wheel

of Italian cheese anywhere in the Western hemisphere.

- We have everything from Walden Pond and Luisa May Alcott

to Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau,

plus the key role that Concord played in the Revolutionary War

once the embattled farmers stood and fired the shot heard

round the world at the old North Bridge a half mile from here.

- I think it really started in Lexington,

but then it came to Concord.

And Concord was where they stood up against the British.

"By the rude bridge that arched the flood,

their flag to April's breeze unfurled.

Here, once, the embattled farmer stood...

Raise arms.

Raise arms.

- ...and fired the shot heard 'round the world."

I find that very moving.

To me, it symbolizes the same thing that I'm doing.

And so it'll be the second shot heard 'round the world.

That's pretty corny, but it will be.

I'm doing it because I know it's right and I know it's just.

Over here, ma'am.

Have a seat.

Thank you, sir.

Yeah, you're welcome.

Take care of yourself.

I will.

I'm Jean Hill, and this is where I live.

The address is 24 Concord Green, Apartment 5.

And I've been living here quite a long time

and I like it very much.

Here it is.

Oh, I remember this so well.

This is 73 Monument Street, where my husband and I raised

our four children.

My husband died in '06.

For a year, I was mourning, but after

that I realized that for the first time in my life

I was not responsible to anyone and I could do anything

I pleased.

I didn't have to do any cooking for my kids,

I didn't have to worry about my husband.

And I liked that, but I did find it

necessary to find some kind of activity.

And that's when I started working

against plastic bottles.

My grandson, Mack...

I was visiting their house one day and Mack said, "You know,

Grandma, there are big bunches of plastic in the ocean

and it's really terrible."

He was a smart little kid and he looked it up on the computer.

You're the source of all this trouble.

Then I started thinking on it and using the internet

to get information.

This is the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

There it is.

And it is an amazing mass.

Look at the size of those gyres, and there are so many of them.

Do you have the Concord Journal yet?

- Yes, ma'am, right on the bottom shelf.

OK.

You have the best butcher in town.

Thank you very much.

Now I need that penny...

Thank you very much.

...because every penny helps.

Absolutely.

There you go, you gave me one too many.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Bye, now.

Bye-bye.

"Bottled water debate resumes."

The more ink you get, the better.

On and on the debate goes.

- Democracy is alive and well in Concord, and lots of people

have points of views on everything

and they're all very articulate.

- As a community, there's no community in the United States

that's ever made a community choice

to eliminate a product such as single serve bottled water.

- People want to drink water, and as a merchant

it's my job to give people what they want.

The packaging is not as important as the product.

- This land has been in agriculture

back before the settlers came, and it

seems the Indians didn't have a very good immigration policy

and they lost the land to some of the intruders.

And this was part of the land taken by the King of England

when they came.

76 years I've lived in Concord, which actually is about

a fifth of the town's history.

I'm opposed to the bottled water ban,

I think that people should be able to make their own choice.

I don't drink it, never bought a bottle in my life.

But I think people should be able to choose.

- Imagine how our Founding Fathers would feel now if after

writing the Declaration of Independence --

which talks about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness --

if they heard hundreds of years later,

you wouldn't even have the freedom to even be able to buy

water.

It's not crack or heroin.

It's water.

Let's keep this in perspective, OK?

- It's also, I think, a pretty slippery slope when

you start trying to make healthy legal items illegal.

I don't know where it starts and where it ends,

but I think it's a pretty slippery slope

to start to take away the freedom of choice for people.

- Live free or die, because death is not

the worst of all evils.

Slavery is.

- I'm Chuck Hacala, captain of the Bedford Minutemen Company.

We are here today for the Meriam Corner Exercise,

and our company is specifically invited to this event

because we carry the Bedford flag, which

was the only flag carried at the Battle of Concord in 1775.

We have lots of things, lots of laws that attack our freedoms.

I can't just go out and drive 200 miles an hour in my car.

I would like to have that freedom, maybe,

but we decide as a group that, no,

we're going to actually put in some laws

that limit our behaviors but in what we

consider a positive way.

So I think, again, it's up to the people that

want to ban the bottles to convince the larger

community that this is really good for everybody.

And if they can convince enough people,

then I think it's perfectly fine to ban something

like bottled water.