HOOKSETT — Town Administrator Dean Shankle wants to hear from the mysterious litterer who has been discarding unused lottery forms along Route 3A for months.
“If they’re trying to make a point, they should call me and let me know what it is,” Shankle said. “They’re just wasting their time littering and no one knows what they’re trying to say.”
Almost every Sunday morning for at least three months, area residents have found blank lottery slips — the kind used by players to select their numbers in a drawing — scattered along a stretch of Route 3A between Cross and Hackett Hill roads.
Sometimes, Shankle said, there are hundreds of tickets, from a variety of games, on different areas of the road.
He said the town has contacted the state lottery commission but found out the blank slips are not traceable to a particular outlet.
“I have no idea why someone would be doing it,” Shankle said. “If someone does have any notion who it is, it would be good to know.”
Debbie Chouinard, an owners of Robie’s Country Deli and Store, said she doesn’t know where the slips are coming from, but they’re on the ground every week.
“Whoever’s doing it has buckets and buckets of these tickets,” Chouinard said. “I don’t know if they have it in for Hooksett or what. That’s what it seems like to me.”
Chouinard said her husband, co-owner David Chouinard, encounters the papers when he comes to work early Sunday mornings, leading the couple to believe someone is picking up the slips on Saturday nights, later throwing them along the road.
“We’ve told the cops, we’ve told the fire department, and we’ve told the town council,” she said. “We don’t know who else to tell. It’s a mess.”
Acting Police Chief Jon Daigle confirmed the department has received reports of the litter and said the matter was referred to the detective division for investigation.
District 3 Town Councilor Jim Levesque said that until the town figures out who is responsible, no action can be taken.
“We’ve discussed it quite a bit at the town council, but everyone’s getting frustrated,” he said. “The only way we can do something about it is if we can catch whoever’s doing it. It’s hard to believe someone would have that many lottery slips and that they wouldn’t just throw them out.”
Because Route 3A is a state road, the Department of Transportation cleans up after the trash is reported, Shankle said. Some residents with property along the road also clean up themselves.
Levesque said the problem is creating an unfair burden on citizens.
“It’s costing taxpayer money to have guys come in and do cleanup,” he said.
klannan@newstote.com
