BAR HARBOR – A skeptical Town Council listened Tuesday night to a proposal to imitate Bangor in adopting a local ordinance to ban smoking in cars when children are present, but it did not dismiss the idea entirely.

Not yet, anyway.

Jonathan Shenkin, a Bangor dentist who spearheaded passage of Bangor’s recently adopted ban, and Councilor Jeff Dobbs argued that health education about the effects of secondhand smoke has proven ineffective and that civil liberties are not at stake when the operation of motor vehicles are concerned. Drivers must have licenses, have to wear seat belts, and cannot have open containers of alcohol in cars, they said.

“You can be naked in your home but you can’t be naked in your car,” the dentist said.

Dobbs, who put the proposal on the council’s agenda, said that children are most vulnerable to the effects of secondhand smoke and need their health protected.

“There’s information that clearly states this is bad,” Dobbs said. “This is a chance for us to do something right and to show some guts.”

Dobbs’ colleagues on the council seemed not to share his enthusiasm for prohibiting adults from smoking in cars when children are present, however. A motion to take no action, which effectively would have killed the proposal, failed by a 3-4 vote and a subsequent vote to take up the issue again on March 6 passed by a 4-3 vote.

But before they switched topics, many members of the council expressed reservations about taking on what they see as a statewide issue and a civil liberties concern.

Councilor Julia Schloss said her father was a chain smoker and that as a baby she was referred to as “the human ashtray” because of the amount of cigarette residue that landed on her. But she said she’s still not sure about creating a ban.

“I don’t believe the town should get into telling people what to do all the time,” she said.

Councilor Rob Jordan said he agreed with Dobbs about the seriousness of exposing children to secondhand smoke.

“I absolutely agree it’s unconscionable for people to smoke in cars with their children present,” he said. “My problem is the invasive nature of making this an ordinance.”

Councilors Paul Paradis and Bob Garland each suggested that perhaps it would be better to leave the issue up to the Legislature, rather than having it addressed on a town-by-town basis.

Shenkin and Dobbs said that the Legislature rarely takes initiative in such matters but instead follows when municipalities take the lead. The statewide ban on smoking in restaurants was preceded by a local ban in Portland, Shenkin said.

Paradis countered that health officials, not police, should be the ones trying to educate the public. He also said he didn’t want Bar Harbor to have to fight off a legal challenge to a ban that was first adopted in Maine by Bangor.

“I’m cheap,” Paradis said. “I’d rather have them break that ground instead of us.”

Bangor’s ban was enacted in January. That same month, the town council in Veazie considered and then dismissed the idea.

In other business, the Bar Harbor council spoke to Chip Reeves, the town’s Public Works director, to find out if the recent closure of the last remaining bottle redemption center on Mount Desert Island would have a significant impact on the amount of materials processed at the town’s transfer station.

Reeves said the transfer station employees have been able to handle the greater volume and should be able to continue to do so. He said it wouldn’t make sense for the town to try to fill the void by paying residents for their returnable bottles and cans.

“You would have to dedicate people to that task,” Reeves said. “You also would have to dedicate an area for people to work in.”

And if it’s at all possible, it likely would take a long time for the town to recoup the costs of setting up such an operation, he said.