[0:07] Hey there. Good evening. Hello. All right, Amy,

[0:14] you're making all the board members co hosts.

[0:20] Okay. Great. And your staff, obviously. So who

[0:38] are we waiting for? We're waiting for Janet.

[1:25] Welcome everyone. I'm gonna wait one more minute

[1:27] to see if Janet arrives. Ami, are you

[1:39] letting in the public? I am. There she

[1:55] is. There she is. Yeah. Joanne, do you

[2:17] see Janet? Yes. She just came in. Okay.

[2:20] To unmute. There she is. Hi. Amy, Trish

[2:32] Allen is part of the garden group so

[2:37] I'm not sure why her video is on

[2:40] from your perspective. Not your bad Trish, just

[2:47] we're trying to. Them's the rules. Yeah. That's

[2:52] there you go. Trish Allen. Should not be

[2:57] a cohost. Not yet. Yeah. No. They're not

[3:01] now. So let me. Been promoted, Trish. Let

[3:09] me see how to do that. I'm hearing

[3:25] some background noise. Anybody know where that's from?

[3:28] No. And what about Sally? Yeah, Sally shouldn't

[3:39] be on the video either. Some I mean,

[3:42] it's nothing it's not bad, but Yeah. I

[3:46] don't know how that happened. What kind of

[3:51] background noise are you hearing? It's off now.

[3:56] I'm not sure who's that was. Okay, I

[3:58] think we're ready. Welcome everyone. This is a

[4:03] city of Northampton Board of Health meeting. It's

[4:06] 01/19/2023. Time is 05:33. Tonight we have all

[4:15] members of our board present Doctor. Cynthia Swopis,

[4:19] Doctor. Suzanne Smith, Nurse Dallas Dukar, Janet Grant,

[4:24] and myself, Doctor. Joanne Levin. We also have

[4:27] some staff from the Department of Health, Director

[4:33] Amy Hutchins of the Department of Environmental Health

[4:39] and Human Services. And I'll ask you later

[4:43] to introduce the other staff members. Great. Yeah.

[4:47] Great. First, we'll start with the public comment

[4:51] session. We would we're always interested in hearing

[4:54] from the public. We ask that you limit

[4:57] your comments to two minutes. And Suzanne, are

[5:00] you up for being timer? Oh, you're muted.

[5:04] Yes. Great. And because of the way our

[5:10] Zoom is set up that the public doesn't

[5:13] generally have their videos enabled. We can't see

[5:18] you if you're waving. So for people who

[5:20] want to give public comment, please use your

[5:22] electronic hand, which is found in the reactions

[5:25] department down in your lower menu. So if

[5:28] you would like to give public comment, please

[5:30] raise an electronic hand. I don't see anyone

[5:39] give it one more minute anyone here for

[5:43] public comment okay I don't see anyone here

[5:49] for public comment session we'll close the public

[5:51] comment session Then would someone like to make

[5:58] a motion to open to convene the meeting

[6:03] of the Northampton Board of Health? Move to

[6:06] open. Is there a second? Second. Any comment

[6:11] or discussion? All in favor, we'll do a

[6:14] roll call for votes. Cynthia? Yes. Suzanne? Yes.

[6:20] Dallas? Yes. Janet? Yes. And me. Yes. Okay.

[6:26] Board of Health meeting is now open. Welcome,

[6:29] everyone. This meeting is being recorded. And I've

[6:38] already mentioned who's here. We are all here.

[6:41] I'm just gonna mention that, I may need

[6:43] to leave early if we are going to

[6:45] go for an extended time, but we'll see

[6:49] how that goes. The first thing on our

[6:54] agenda was a continuation of the hearing for

[6:57] Jim's Variety. Do we have a representative from

[7:01] Jim's Variety here? Amy, do you know if

[7:05] they were invited to come to the department?

[7:07] They were and we reached out to them

[7:09] to see if they'd like to join us

[7:11] at the department itself because they had some

[7:13] technical difficulties last time and they assured that

[7:17] they were going to be all set and

[7:19] that they would be here. Okay do you

[7:22] see any of these names representing? I don't

[7:25] and the only The one thing is that

[7:30] it appears on the agenda that the hearing

[7:33] is to start at 05:45. Oh, that's a

[7:36] very good point. So we need to give

[7:39] them that time. Okay, good. Let's move on

[7:45] and we'll come back to them. Let's move

[7:47] to public health nursing updates. Do you want

[7:49] to introduce your staff, Amy? Absolutely. Kelly Hughes

[7:55] is with us tonight. She's our new public

[7:57] health nurse. Kelly, if you'd like, why don't

[8:00] you tell us a little bit about yourself

[8:02] and what you do at DHHS? Hi there.

[8:07] Is everybody able to hear me? I'm going

[8:10] to mute myself because I'm hearing Oh, you're

[8:13] here twice. Of my voice. You're actually You're

[8:17] here twice. Are you able to hear me

[8:20] if I do that? Yes. Yes? Okay. Hi,

[8:24] sorry about that. So, my name is Kelly

[8:26] Hughes. I'm an LPN that's been working in

[8:30] ambulatory care, primary care in the Valley for

[8:33] about eight years or so, seven, eight years.

[8:37] I worked with the health department as part

[8:39] of the COVID-nineteen contact tracing nurse collaborative for

[8:44] a couple of years, and that's how I

[8:47] got connected with the health department. And I'm

[8:49] also an MRC volunteer from about 2016 till

[8:53] now. I'm excited to join the team and

[8:58] work with Amy and Elliot and Meredith and

[9:00] everybody else seems really lovely. I'm excited to

[9:04] start this new adventure. Great. Well, thank you

[9:08] and welcome. Thank you. Thank you, Elliot's also

[9:12] with us. I think Elliot's going to do

[9:15] an update on the respiratory illness. Yeah. So

[9:18] I'm going to share my screen. And I'm

[9:23] sharing straight from the Northampton City website where

[9:29] anyone who wants to can find this information

[9:31] every week. So, here's our dashboard for this

[9:35] week. Now, we had a pretty significant bump

[9:37] over the holidays, and I know last week,

[9:41] our test positivity rate rose to eleven percent.

[9:45] So, that was kind of worrying. But then,

[9:46] when you dig into the numbers, it was

[9:48] actually for the week that included New Year's,

[9:51] and there were very few tests performed, which

[9:56] I think just meant that the only tests

[9:58] that were being done basically were probably through

[10:00] like hospitals and things like that, where they're

[10:03] testing people who are sicker. So, I think

[10:04] that's positivity rate temporarily like doubled for only

[10:08] a week. Our hospitalization rate in the county

[10:13] is about the same as it was, and

[10:16] our wastewater has had a huge decline. So,

[10:20] it's all pretty good to see. It seems

[10:24] like we're probably coming down from our holiday

[10:28] peak, particularly based on the wastewater and the

[10:31] fact that our hospitalizations have stopped climbing. Although,

[10:36] of course, we know hospitalizations lag cases, so

[10:40] they're still kind of high. So you can

[10:43] see our wastewater data here. The blue is

[10:46] Northampton, the green is Hampshire County, and the

[10:50] gray is nationally. And you can see our

[10:53] two local numbers here, they've declined quite a

[10:55] lot. They're kind of back to almost pre

[10:58] Thanksgiving levels. And flu, luckily, seems to have

[11:06] collapsed. I mean, if you look at it,

[11:09] we're really back to a typical season. Flu

[11:13] is not gone, but it's not at these,

[11:16] like, extremely high levels that we were seeing

[11:18] for a while, which is great to see.

[11:22] Now, I know that experts are predicting that

[11:24] later in the season, most likely we're going

[11:26] to get a second spike of flu B.

[11:28] It's hard to say how bad that'll be,

[11:32] but I know that I was hearing from

[11:35] DPH that they are expecting a second spike

[11:38] later in the season for flu. And then

[11:40] we know RSV is still circulating but at

[11:42] pretty low levels, so that also has quieted

[11:45] down. So all in all, right now, seems

[11:49] like cautiously good news for the time being

[11:52] in terms of respiratory illnesses. And as always,

[11:57] people should use the same techniques they've been

[12:00] using in terms of social distancing, masking, indoor

[12:04] ventilation, testing, staying home if they're sick, and

[12:08] all of that. Elliot, just the transmission rate.

[12:17] I'm sorry. The slide went by really quickly.

[12:19] We're still high with the transmission rate? Yeah,

[12:24] so we are still at the high level.

[12:26] Okay. And our best indicator now because of

[12:30] PCR testing and home testing is wastewater, is

[12:34] that correct? It seems like it. And I

[12:38] just was in a webinar with the CDC

[12:42] about wastewater today, and they were saying that

[12:46] wastewater has very, very reliably predicted hospitalizations. And

[12:52] so they're seeing that it really is a

[12:55] pretty good indicator. Great. Thank you. Thank you.

[13:02] I think, what I see at the hospital

[13:04] also reflects what you were saying. We had,

[13:08] and I don't remember which week it was,

[13:10] maybe the week after Christmas, we had an

[13:12] enormous jump in hospitalizations, like doubled, like wild,

[13:16] and then it went right back down. So

[13:19] I'm not, you know, I think it was

[13:20] real, but definitely in a better place than

[13:25] it was. Any questions for Elliot? Okay, thank

[13:33] you so much. All right, I think we'll

[13:39] go back to our hearing. Amy do you

[13:45] remember, do we need to officially open and

[13:47] close the hearing. Does anybody remember? I'm gonna

[13:54] think we do do that. I feel like

[13:56] we do. I don't know that for sure.

[13:58] Yeah. Okay. It would be safer to do

[14:04] that. Yeah. Yeah. And I thought oh, there's

[14:09] Hamed. Do you wanna let mister Habib be

[14:14] a cohost? You got it. Okay. Where is

[14:27] he? Mister Habib, are you with us? Hi.

[14:35] Yes. Hi. How are you today? Good. Welcome.

[14:38] Do you want to turn on your video?

[14:40] You don't have to, obviously. But you are

[14:42] welcome to if you want to. There you

[14:46] are. Okay, great. So would someone like to

[14:49] make a motion to open the hearing regarding

[14:54] Jim's Variety Store? I'll motion. Is there a

[14:58] second? Second. Thank you. Any discussion? All in

[15:03] favor? Suzanne? Yes. Dallas? Yes. Janet? Yes. Cynthia?

[15:10] Yes. Joanne, yes. Okay. Welcome back, Mr. Habib.

[15:15] Thank you. Thank you so much. So the

[15:20] last time we met, we had talked about

[15:26] the findings. And we had talked about the

[15:32] fact that we were using the new state

[15:37] regulations and that we had proposed the fine

[15:41] of $1,000 but we were undecided about what

[15:47] is appropriate for that ban on sales. Meredith,

[15:56] unfortunately, couldn't be here tonight, but her recommendation

[16:00] is that because they cited rule six sixty

[16:10] five, which is the state reg, that we

[16:14] couldn't use our local reg. And then there

[16:17] was the whole issue about the state regs

[16:19] sort of because they were new, everyone was

[16:22] sort of starting fresh. There was a question

[16:27] that Meredith had at that time about whether

[16:30] there was a mandatory ban on sales in

[16:35] the state reg. But we discovered later that

[16:38] that was only true if sales to a

[16:40] minor was the issue, which was not the

[16:42] issue here. So Meredith's recommendation is that we

[16:47] go with the fine and not with the,

[16:51] sales ban and complete this case. Does anybody

[16:57] have any comments? And Cheryl, welcome. Cheryl Sabar

[17:08] is with Thank you. I had a hard

[17:10] time getting on. What's new? So Cheryl, maybe

[17:17] I'll ask you to introduce yourself. So we

[17:20] have some new members, and maybe we'll go

[17:21] around and introduce ourselves because of this hearing,

[17:24] there may be questions for you. Sure. I

[17:29] am Cheryl Sabara. I am the Executive Director

[17:32] and Senior Staff Attorney for the Massachusetts Association

[17:35] of Health Boards. And in that capacity, I

[17:38] provide legal education and technical assistance to boards

[17:41] of health throughout the Commonwealth. I think what

[17:44] occurred here is that the state law now

[17:49] requires a suspension for the first offense of

[17:55] selling to someone under the age of 21.

[17:59] But that is the only mandatory suspension requirement

[18:04] in the state law for a first sale.

[18:07] And I believe that's why Meredith is suggesting

[18:12] that the fine alone would suffice in this

[18:17] case. Any questions for Mr. Habib, for me,

[18:24] or for Cheryl? I guess I kind of

[18:32] have a question, although I don't know who

[18:34] it's for. I just, pretty new to the

[18:38] Board of Health, and this was the first

[18:40] thing like this that has come up. I

[18:45] remember, Meredith saying that this actually had not

[18:50] been a first offense. And I don't know

[18:53] how that's counted or, you know, I think

[18:56] it was maybe, it was a first offense

[18:58] since these new regs, but it's not overall

[19:02] the first offense. So I find that a

[19:05] little concerning. I can give a little explanation

[19:09] of that if I'm allowed to. Sure, go

[19:13] ahead. So I'm managing the store since last

[19:16] ten years. Currently, I was actually going through

[19:22] the state rules and regulations that if you

[19:25] have a violation and then for the next

[19:27] three years, you do not have any more

[19:30] violation than the previous one gets expunged from

[19:33] your record. So if after three years you

[19:36] have a new offense, new violation, then that

[19:40] is considered as the first one. So far

[19:43] in ten years, we never had any state

[19:46] related violations. For the city of Northampton, we

[19:53] did had two violations before, but that also

[19:58] been a very, very long time ago. Our

[20:00] first violation was about eight years ago. It

[20:04] was selling to a miner. At that time

[20:06] we had a new employee and same thing

[20:08] happened. It's almost four years now since our

[20:13] last violation. So as far as anything else

[20:18] is concerned, this is our first violation on

[20:23] not selling to a minor. A point of

[20:29] clarification is that we have local regulations which

[20:33] are slightly different from the state ones, and

[20:36] ours tend to be more strict. And so

[20:39] our regulations say that there is no, what

[20:44] they call, tolling period, meaning you get to

[20:46] wipe your slate clean after three years, even

[20:49] though the state offers that. Our regulations don't,

[20:53] and that is something on our agenda tonight

[20:54] to discuss going forward. Cheryl, tell me if

[21:01] I'm correct. Because ours are more strict, we

[21:04] can go by ours. Yes, you can. That

[21:09] the state law specifies that if the local

[21:13] regulation is stricter, then you certainly can use

[21:16] your own regulation. And I'd like to add

[21:20] Donna Bowman, Inspector Bowman is here with us

[21:23] who did the inspection and has the file

[21:26] for Jim's variety. So I'm not sure if

[21:29] you'd like her to speak to the history

[21:32] as well and that side to it. If

[21:36] you guys have any questions regarding that, Donna

[21:39] is here with us. Sure. Donna, do you

[21:42] have anything you want to add? I think

[21:43] we reviewed the specifics last time, but I

[21:46] don't know if you want to summarize them.

[21:48] Thank you for coming. Sure. Hi. Good evening,

[21:51] everyone. I don't have anything to add. I

[21:53] know we have reviewed everything that was on

[21:57] the violation list. There is nothing new or

[22:02] different to be reviewed. So, I don't have

[22:07] anything else to offer with more news. Thank

[22:14] you. Cheryl, just one question is, I guess

[22:17] Meredith had recommended that or said that the

[22:22] state had recommended that everybody get a clean

[22:24] slate because these new regs came in and

[22:28] we had sort of old regs and new

[22:29] regs. How do you recommend we approach that?

[22:32] Well, is the recommendation normally given because of

[22:38] the different tolling periods, because the effective date

[22:40] of the regulation was during COVID, and boards

[22:44] weren't out actually enforcing for some time, And

[22:48] what the standard operating procedure at most boards

[22:53] was to start new with the thirty six

[22:56] months. However, with with Northampton, because you don't

[23:00] have a tolling period at all, the tolling

[23:05] period really isn't the issue. The issue is

[23:07] how do you wanna wipe out the old

[23:13] ones just because of the new law or

[23:16] do you wanna keep them in? And that's

[23:18] a judgment call that the board needs to

[23:21] make. Yeah. Meredith's recommendation is to let everyone

[23:30] start fresh, But it's up to you guys.

[23:36] Any thoughts? But does that impact this particular

[23:49] case? Or is that another discussion? Because Mr.

[23:57] Habib is acknowledging I don't have the data

[24:00] in front of me that this is this

[24:01] third offense, Yeah. It would impact this discussion

[24:06] if we decided not to let him start

[24:11] fresh and have this be his first offense,

[24:13] then we'd have to look at our regs,

[24:15] what the consequences are for a third offense

[24:18] if I'm reading the letter correctly that was

[24:22] sent to Mr. Habib it's listed as a

[24:27] first violation that That is what we notified

[24:32] him about. So I would think that it

[24:36] would not be right at this point to

[24:38] change that. Oh, actually, the law that was

[24:42] cited was the state law. So this was

[24:45] the first offense under the state law. But

[24:49] it was, that is how he was notified.

[24:53] So this would be, I don't think that

[24:56] this would be an opportune time to change

[25:00] that to a second or third offense. Does

[25:05] anyone have any other questions or thoughts or

[25:07] would someone like to make a proposal? May

[25:11] I just say, I apologize, but may I

[25:13] just say one other thing that I always

[25:17] say, and again, this is something for the

[25:19] board to consider, but what public health is,

[25:23] what we try to do in public health

[25:26] is to get to compliance. We're not about

[25:28] punishment, we're about compliance. That's the goal of

[25:32] everything that we do. So I just want

[25:35] that to be out on the table in

[25:36] public. Can I add something on on that

[25:41] part? We we have the tobacco as well

[25:46] as beer and wine in our store, and,

[25:49] we have some strong rules and regulations in

[25:54] the store as well as far as checking

[25:56] IDs and making sure that none of the

[25:59] miners in our community are getting what they're

[26:01] not supposed to get. Beer and wine, as

[26:05] everybody knows, is required to have at least

[26:08] 21 and over. We have zero violations in

[26:11] the history of this store. For the tobacco,

[26:15] yes, we had two selling to minor one,

[26:17] eight years ago, one, four years ago. Again,

[26:20] it's 100% agree that should not have happened.

[26:23] But when an employee changes, we get a

[26:28] new employee sometime. It does get a little

[26:30] difficult, but then I also understand that is

[26:33] our problem just to make sure that we

[26:35] have everything in place to train new employees

[26:39] better. So as far as compliance is concerned,

[26:44] we have a very strict rules and regulations.

[26:47] And if I have to make those stricter,

[26:50] I will do anything to make sure that

[26:53] these mistakes won't happen in the future. We

[26:57] appreciate that. You know, we take these regulations

[27:00] quite seriously. I myself have a 15 year

[27:06] old and a nine year old, and I

[27:07] definitely understand that how our community, you know,

[27:11] people feel if their kids, you know, either

[27:14] smoking or, you know, drinking under the age

[27:17] of 21, I completely understand that being father

[27:21] myself. So I am doing it, plus further

[27:25] I'll do anything in my hands to make

[27:28] sure that these violations don't happen again. Great.

[27:35] Board members, anybody have any other questions? Or

[27:40] would someone like to make a motion? I

[27:49] move to impose the $1,000 fine for this

[27:53] violation of our tobacco regulations and the fine

[27:58] only. I second. Any other comments, discussion, questions?

[28:07] I mean, think actually procedurally we had already

[28:11] done that. Had already I think we talked

[28:13] about it, but I think we didn't vote.

[28:15] That's what Meredith said. Oh, okay. I thought

[28:20] we had separated the fine from the suspension.

[28:26] Any other questions or comments? All in favor,

[28:34] Suzanne? Yes. Dallas? Yes. Janet? Yes. Cynthia? Yes.

[28:41] Joanne? Yes. Thank you very much. Thank you

[28:45] for coming, Mr. Habib. Thank you so much.

[28:47] And Wishing you good luck in the future.

[28:50] Thank you so much. Would someone like to

[28:55] close the hearing? Go ahead. Go ahead, Suzy.

[29:03] Motion to close the hearing. Thanks, Suzanne. Second.

[29:08] Any questions or comments? All in favor, Suzanne?

[29:14] Yes. Dallas? Yes. Janet? Yes. Cynthia? Yes. Joanne,

[29:21] yes. Thank you all. I, I actually do

[29:25] have one comment just, listening to what Mr.

[29:30] Habib said about, you know, wanting to do

[29:33] anything he can to try to make sure

[29:36] that it doesn't happen, particularly sales to minors.

[29:39] And I just really wanna emphasize the idea

[29:43] of training new employees, making them feel what

[29:48] you feel as a father young, you know,

[29:52] of young people. Then periodically checking in with

[30:00] them about it. I 100% agree with that.

[30:04] I'm already have started that. In fact, sometime

[30:07] I use my family members or friends that

[30:09] my employees haven't seen. I send them in

[30:12] the store, hey, try to go. I sent

[30:16] my niece who's 17 years old and I

[30:18] sent her that, hey, try to go biopsy

[30:21] and let's see what happens. And I'm glad

[30:23] that, you know, it was in compliance. So

[30:25] I'm doing stuff like that as well just

[30:27] to make sure that, you know, we are

[30:30] there. Great. Thank you. Great. Thank you. And,

[30:37] mister Habib, if you could turn off your

[30:40] if you could mute and turn off your

[30:41] video, that would be helpful. Thank you. Okay.

[30:52] Is Robin here? Robin's here. Amy, can you

[30:58] unmute Robin and Rachel, please. Our next business

[31:05] is discussing racism at the community gardens. We

[31:08] have Robin McKeown and Rachel Ehrlich with us

[31:15] to present. You have documents you've received regarding

[31:19] this, both a letter that they sent to

[31:22] the board in December, as well as a

[31:24] statement that they proposed that they're looking for

[31:29] our endorsement. So Robin and Rachel, you may

[31:35] take it away. Thank you. Good evening. Thank

[31:39] you, Chair Levin, members of the board for

[31:41] having us tonight to discuss the racial equity

[31:44] initiative at the community garden in Northampton. I'm

[31:48] joined by several community gardeners and community members

[31:50] who are involved in this effort, including, I

[31:53] believe, Ellie Cook as well as Rachel Ehrlich.

[31:55] Ellie and Rachel and I are the three

[31:57] cosigners of the letter submitted to the board

[32:00] last month describing the initiative, its proposal, and

[32:03] the request that the board endorse the proposal.

[32:06] So I'm gonna turn it over here to

[32:08] Rachel to present a summary of the initiative,

[32:10] the proposal, and our request to the board.

[32:12] And following that, we're all available to address

[32:15] any questions you may have. Amy, could you

[32:18] also give Ellie make her co host so

[32:24] she can put on her video and unmute.

[32:28] Is l oh, is Ellie the oh, there

[32:30] we go. The e. Yep. And I see

[32:34] Robin. Where is Rachel? I got I am

[32:37] right here. Nice to meet There you are.

[32:39] Can everyone hear me all right? Yes. Great.

[32:42] Good evening, Chair Levin and other members of

[32:45] the Board of Health. We're really happy to

[32:46] be here. Thank you so much for taking

[32:49] the time to hear from us tonight about

[32:51] the Racial Equity Initiative at the Northampton Community

[32:54] Garden. I'm Rachel Ehrlich. I use sheher pronouns.

[32:57] I'm a gardener at the community garden and

[32:59] part of a group of gardeners that have

[33:01] been working on this initiative. I'm going to

[33:04] present tonight a brief summary of the initiative,

[33:06] its nexus us to public health, and our

[33:09] request for the board's endorsement of our proposal.

[33:12] The Northampton Community Garden is located on Burt's

[33:15] Pit Road. It offers four twenty garden pots,

[33:18] garden by over two fifty gardeners. It's a

[33:21] program of the Parks and Recreation Department, and

[33:24] is managed by a volunteer garden committee and

[33:26] maintained by a community of gardeners. In recent

[33:30] years, multiple black gardeners have left the community

[33:34] gardens because of failures to address concerns of

[33:36] racial bias, and both past and present Black

[33:39] gardeners and other gardeners of color continue to

[33:42] report acts of bias and racism in our

[33:45] garden community. Recognizing the need to address the

[33:49] impacts of racial bias and related issues of

[33:52] safety, access, equity, and dignity on our community,

[33:56] a growing group of gardeners has been working

[33:58] for the past year and a half to

[33:59] ask that the Northampton Community Garden address these

[34:02] issues in both its policies and its practices.

[34:06] This group of gardeners has developed a proposed

[34:08] equity sustainability statement, which you have for adoption

[34:12] by the community garden. You've seen this statement

[34:15] and accompanying FAQs. They were submitted to the

[34:18] board last month as attachments to the letter

[34:21] that we sent. The proposed statement articulates both

[34:24] an explicit commitment to addressing racial equity and

[34:29] importantly establishes a framework for development by the

[34:32] community gardeners of a plan of action. The

[34:35] group's proposal specifically asks that the Northampton Community

[34:38] Guard, one, adopt this equity and sustainability statement,

[34:43] and two, create a dedicated committee position on

[34:47] the garden committee for a volunteer representative to

[34:50] coordinate implementation of specific actions in support of

[34:54] this initiative. Similar initiatives undertaken by other community

[34:59] gardens have resulted in a range of actions,

[35:01] including implementation of frameworks to address equity and

[35:05] access in the assignment of garden plots, development

[35:08] of safety protocols that reflect alternatives to increase

[35:12] police presence, providing educational resources to gardeners, and

[35:16] partnering with local organizations to help amplify and

[35:19] enhance the effectiveness of this work. I want

[35:23] to briefly now summarize the outreach that we've

[35:25] conducted to date. Over the past year and

[35:28] a half, this initiative has included outreach to

[35:31] the Parks and Recreation Department, the Garden Committee,

[35:34] gardeners, and neighbors to the garden, community members,

[35:37] and city representatives. The garden committee and parks

[35:40] and recreation have in the past indicated that

[35:43] they don't have the expertise or capacity to

[35:45] address these issues. And while we have deep

[35:48] respect for their work, we also believe that

[35:50] making real progress on an existing municipal commitment

[35:54] to issues of safety, equity, and dignity cannot

[35:57] be further delayed. So we continue our efforts

[36:00] while we look forward to a future opportunity

[36:02] to work with the garden committee and the

[36:04] parks and recreation toward these goals. In the

[36:08] meantime, this past August, we began additional outreach

[36:11] to gardeners to share the proposal. And despite

[36:14] starting somewhat late in the gardening season, over

[36:17] 20% of gardeners have been already reached and

[36:20] signed on to support of the proposal. This

[36:22] fall and into the winter, we continued a

[36:24] series of informal conversations with community members and

[36:27] city representatives to familiarize themselves with them with

[36:30] the initiative. Responses to all of this outreach

[36:33] has been really overwhelmingly positive and supportive. Finally,

[36:38] and I know thank you so much for

[36:39] continuing to listen. I know I've been talking

[36:41] for a bit. I want to address the

[36:43] nexus to public health. As all of you

[36:45] are aware, the social conditions in the environments

[36:48] where we live, learn, work and recreate affect

[36:51] our health and our quality of life. Racism

[36:54] and racial bias in these environments correlate to

[36:57] significant measurable negative health outcomes. Understanding this, both

[37:02] the City Council and the Board of Health

[37:03] have adopted resolutions that explicitly identify racism as

[37:06] an ongoing public health crisis, identify action at

[37:10] the local level as essential and importantly, commit

[37:13] to ongoing action to address this public health

[37:15] crisis. As you know, the Board of Health's

[37:18] twenty twenty resolution declaring racism a public health

[37:21] emergency acknowledged that the ongoing public health crisis

[37:23] of racism results in health disparities and unequal

[37:26] access. And for those reasons, the board resolved

[37:29] to commit to ongoing work around racial justice.

[37:32] In that context, endorsement of our proposal is

[37:35] aligned with the City Council and the Board

[37:37] of Health's resolutions, and represents a small but

[37:40] real step toward the stated commitment to address

[37:43] the public health crisis of racism in our

[37:44] community. Underscoring this, the racial equity initiative underway

[37:50] at the Community Garden has been presented to

[37:51] the Northampton Human Rights Commission, and the Human

[37:54] Rights Commission has voted to endorse the proposal.

[37:58] Finally, in closing, we're heartened to know that

[38:01] both the City Council and the Board of

[38:03] Health have explicitly committed to addressing racial equity

[38:05] and racial disparities as a public health concern.

[38:09] In keeping with this commitment, we're here tonight

[38:11] to request that the Board of Health stand

[38:13] with the Northampton Human Rights Commission and endorse

[38:16] the proposal that the Northampton Community Garden adopt

[38:19] the equity and sustainability statement with its embedded

[38:22] framework for action and create a dedicated position

[38:26] on the garden committee for a volunteer representative

[38:28] to coordinate implementation of this necessary work. Should

[38:33] the board vote to endorse this proposal, we

[38:35] ask that the board consider summarizing its endorsement

[38:38] in a brief written statement or titled letter.

[38:41] I want to end by thanking you all

[38:43] for your time, and note that there are

[38:44] several of us here tonight who would be

[38:46] happy to answer questions. Thank you again so

[38:48] much for listening. Thank you so much. Board

[38:56] members, does anybody have any questions? We've got

[38:59] Rachel, Robin and Ellie here representing folks from

[39:04] the garden. Any questions? You should have received

[39:07] the copy of the letter as well as

[39:10] the statement that they're asking for us to

[39:13] endorse. Any questions? Comments? I have two questions.

[39:24] As we move forward to try to help

[39:27] address racism as a public health issue, information

[39:31] about what's going on would be very helpful

[39:33] to me. So acknowledging that you've said that

[39:38] there have been events, it would help me

[39:41] to know the nature of these, the context

[39:45] in which they occurred. That would just help

[39:49] me on a personal level. And my second

[39:51] question is, how will our support help your

[39:55] efforts? Those are excellent questions. Thank you so

[40:05] much. Robin, I'm gonna ask you to unmute

[40:07] if it's okay so we can address this

[40:09] together. Robin, would you start by detailing just,

[40:13] so first of all, I wanna say, Chris,

[40:15] thank you so much for your question. We're

[40:17] not in a position, obviously, to detail all

[40:19] of the events that have been experienced by

[40:21] black gardeners or gardeners of color, but we're

[40:24] happy to enumerate an example of the kinds

[40:26] of things that we have heard. Robin, would

[40:29] you take that, and then I'll answer the

[40:30] second part of Chris's question. Sure. I'm aware

[40:35] from conversations with gardeners of color of a

[40:39] range of experiences. And I'll just start with

[40:41] my own experience as a white gardener. I've

[40:43] been a gardener for over ten years. I've

[40:45] spent a lot of time in the garden,

[40:47] and I have never once been questioned as

[40:50] to whether I belong there, when I'm gardening

[40:53] or walking through the garden. The most common

[40:56] story that I've heard is the level of

[40:59] interrogation that gardeners of color experience over time,

[41:03] the questioning about whether they belong, what are

[41:06] they doing in that plot, is it their

[41:08] plot, those types of interactions. There was an

[41:12] event, a little over a year and a

[41:14] half ago that spurred on this current work.

[41:18] A young black child was verbally assaulted and

[41:23] accused of theft. And that event, in combination

[41:29] with others, led to multiple black gardeners leaving

[41:31] the garden, feeling that there was a failure

[41:34] to address both what had transpired in that

[41:37] event and and the larger issue of of

[41:39] racial bias and and white privilege and how

[41:41] all of these things play out in a

[41:42] majority white space, which is what this community

[41:45] garden is. I each of the gardeners of

[41:50] color, past and present, that I have spoken

[41:53] with have had their own story to tell

[41:55] about an experience. And, you know, as Rachel

[42:00] said, it's not my place really to, I

[42:04] think, go much further into their stories and

[42:06] their experiences in the garden. But to say

[42:10] that these are the stories we hear all

[42:13] over our country, right, coming out of majority

[42:16] white spaces. I don't think there's I don't

[42:18] think we're an outlier, in the community garden.

[42:21] But I think that as with the rest

[42:25] of our our community and our communities across

[42:27] this country, we we do need to acknowledge

[42:29] that these things are happening and we need

[42:31] to act. So I hope that answers enough

[42:34] of your question, Chris. Yeah. Regarding the nature

[42:37] and context. I apologize. That's the wrong name.

[42:45] I'm Suzanne. Oh, I'm so sorry. I'm so

[42:48] sorry too. Sorry about that, Suzanne. You have

[42:50] no way of knowing. How would you know?

[42:53] Has to be changed at the beginning of

[42:54] the meeting and skip right past that. That's

[42:58] very helpful to me. In reading through the

[43:03] materials, recognize you need to honor people's privacy

[43:08] and not trigger people by having their particular

[43:13] stories spoken about in public without their consent.

[43:19] But I had no idea the nature of

[43:23] what you were referring to. So what you

[43:26] have said was very helpful. Rachel, did you

[43:30] want to answer the second question? I'm happy

[43:33] to answer the second question. Change specifically around

[43:40] racism in this country and in our community

[43:42] is slow. And the endorsement of your body

[43:48] in particular in relation to issues of public

[43:51] health and emphasizing that this is a public

[43:54] health issue amplifies this issue in the community,

[43:58] and that is necessary in order for us

[44:00] to continue to spur change. We're trying to

[44:03] put some pressure to move and also create

[44:06] some collaborative bodies that will help us continue

[44:09] to do this work. Robin, did you want

[44:12] to add anything else to the second part

[44:13] of that question? No, that's perfect, Rachel. So

[44:19] I have some questions. I don't know a

[44:25] whole lot about the garden. I'm not a

[44:27] gardener, but I live very close by and

[44:31] walk through there. And my understanding is that

[44:36] the guarding committee itself is all volunteer. So

[44:42] I guess I'm just wondering, I mean, honestly,

[44:46] to me, this is a little bit of

[44:48] a no brainer in terms of what you're

[44:51] asking, but I'm wondering why it I understand

[44:57] the second part about getting the endorsement from

[44:59] the Board of Health, but I'm wondering why

[45:05] the guarding committee just hasn't said, Sure, if

[45:09] you wanna have a representative, great. So that's

[45:13] a question, I guess. I know they're all

[45:15] very hardworking volunteers with good intent, so that's

[45:22] a question. I'm wondering if there are any

[45:29] Black or brown people that are part of

[45:31] your group, thinking about the whole thing of

[45:37] nothing about us without us. It feels a

[45:41] little funny to me if everybody in your

[45:45] group are white people who are saying this

[45:49] is what kind of needs to happen. So

[45:52] there's that. And I guess the third thing

[45:54] is just around governance in general of the

[45:57] guarding committee. Is there a decision making process

[46:02] for how things happen there? What is the

[46:04] governance so that this could move forward? If

[46:10] you don't mind, I'm gonna take your questions

[46:12] a little bit out of order and speak

[46:13] to first the fact that we are a

[46:16] group of white people, although I will say

[46:18] that some gardeners of color have signed on

[46:20] to our initiative, but as a body of

[46:22] people who has been working together, we are

[46:24] the delight people. In no way would we

[46:29] ever presume to speak for or stand in

[46:32] the way of any initiative brought to the

[46:34] garden by people of color. And I firmly

[46:38] believe that this is a white problem that

[46:41] exists in the community garden, and it's time

[46:43] for white people to step up and respond

[46:45] to that problem so that people of color

[46:47] can go about the business of gardening in

[46:50] the garden in a safe and thoughtful and

[46:52] in a way that in which they feel

[46:56] welcomed and white people have not created that.

[46:59] So I agree with what you said, you

[47:03] know, nothing for us without us. I think

[47:07] that that is excellent, and I also believe

[47:11] that it's time for white people to do

[47:12] this work. I will say that at one

[47:16] point in the process, shortly after the incident

[47:19] that Robin mentioned, we were offered to take

[47:23] a seat on the garden committee to speak

[47:27] to issues of racism and racial equity. And

[47:30] that offer was retracted. And we don't really

[47:33] know why that is. The only thing we've

[47:37] heard with regard to why the garden committee

[47:40] has not been able to work with us

[47:43] is a response about capacity and timing. And

[47:46] I think Robin can speak a little bit

[47:48] more to some of the opaqueness of how

[47:50] the garden committee works. Well, my answer to

[47:56] the question about governance structure and how it

[47:58] works is that I I I don't I

[48:00] don't know. I I have the same questions,

[48:04] I think, that you do. I know some

[48:07] of the members of the committee, though I'm

[48:08] not aware of who all of them are.

[48:10] We have, throughout the process of doing this

[48:14] work, reached out a number of times to

[48:16] the committee to share our concerns, to share

[48:18] our suggestions, to share our interest, to provide

[48:21] updates. But, the response we've received is that

[48:26] at one point, it was that they didn't

[48:27] have the expertise to discuss the issue. At

[48:29] another point, it was that they didn't have

[48:31] time to meet with us. So I I

[48:32] I don't know enough about the governance structure

[48:36] or how committee members are selected or how

[48:38] decisions are made to to answer that question.

[48:41] I apologize about that. I wish I did.

[48:44] I just want to Oh, could I say

[48:46] something, Rachel? Are you Okay. Thing number one,

[48:50] it's very opaque. The whole governance governance of

[48:53] the garden committee is opaque. There are a

[48:56] couple of people who seem to be running

[48:59] everything and they get a lot of work

[49:02] done and they're very effective in the actual

[49:05] work of the garden in terms of you

[49:08] know getting the hay the straw to be

[49:10] delivered and the compost and all that and

[49:12] to get people to do some garden work

[49:15] but I'd also like to point out that

[49:17] we have very few black gardeners or brown

[49:20] ones either and I think that a lot

[49:22] of that is because quite a few of

[49:24] them have left and the one I've spoken

[49:30] to a couple of the black gardeners who

[49:32] are actually more than a couple the brown

[49:35] gardeners just aren't interested in getting involved in

[49:38] this They just don't want to. And I

[49:41] spoke to one black gardener and he said

[49:43] he just just was like no because he

[49:48] was I think he was afraid but I

[49:50] don't know that. I've also seen, I've witnessed

[49:54] evidence of this kind of challenging people of

[49:59] color who come to the garden for some

[50:02] reason or another, and they're asked why they're

[50:04] there. And I've seen that happen twice in

[50:07] my time there which I'm sure it's happened

[50:10] more often and we do have one black

[50:13] gardener who thought about leaving when everybody else

[50:16] left but she decided to stay and she

[50:20] has a beautiful garden, amazing garden and she

[50:24] and so does the gentleman who didn't want

[50:27] to be involved and she and there aren't

[50:29] that many there just aren't that many black

[50:32] people. There are quite a few there's like

[50:35] a large contingent of Guatemalan gardeners formerly Guatemalan

[50:41] now American gardeners who are really prolific gardeners

[50:46] wonderful gardeners but they are not just not

[50:49] interested in all the ins and outs of

[50:53] our discussion so that's my been my experience

[50:56] and I walked around asking people to sign

[51:00] so I've had a lot of experience just

[51:03] trying to figure out who was interested and

[51:06] who wasn't or who was afraid and I

[51:09] felt fear you know from the man and

[51:12] from the woman she's willing to join on

[51:15] and I'm pretty sure she will be part

[51:18] of this group our group very soon. So

[51:23] other than that, I mean, think I know

[51:25] of only one other black gardener besides those

[51:28] two I mentioned, and there may be more,

[51:30] but this this is the problem. We're not

[51:32] we're not making it accessible we're not bringing

[51:35] people in and so if we're not bringing

[51:38] people in and people have left it gets

[51:40] wider and wider and wider you know okay

[51:43] so that's really all I had to say

[51:45] I'm sorry. Thanks, Sally. Is it true that

[51:49] the garden falls under Parks and Recreation? That

[51:53] is correct. It's a program of the Department

[51:55] of Parks and Rec. Have you approached them

[51:58] at all about how what what the governance

[52:00] structure is and how one gets on the

[52:02] garden committee and that kind of thing? We

[52:05] all of the conversation that we have had

[52:08] about, our work has been transmitted both to

[52:11] the garden committee and to the parks and

[52:14] rec commissioner. Actually, director of the department. Sorry.

[52:19] And the director of the department of recs.

[52:21] And again, the response back has been minimal

[52:27] at best. Thank you. Any other questions or

[52:32] comments from the board members? I'd just like

[52:38] to comment that the city has a gem

[52:42] with the community garden, this beautiful piece of

[52:46] land. I just want to harken back to

[52:51] some work Grow Food Northampton does, not owned

[52:55] by the city but on city property, and

[52:58] how they outreach to several populations equating food

[53:07] and justice and health as all the same

[53:10] thing. For their plots and their land, the

[53:14] process is completely transparent. As a matter of

[53:17] fact, it's on sliding scale and land is

[53:22] often donated to gardeners of color. Gardeners of

[53:26] color that may not even know how to

[53:28] farm or garden are taught that. And so

[53:31] we have an example in the community. It's

[53:35] a nonprofit. And I just think we have

[53:38] so much potential to do the same thing

[53:41] in the city's community garden. And I just

[53:44] want to harken back to the city council's

[53:47] resolution similar to our resolution. The city council

[53:51] said in 2020 that they were going to

[53:54] establish a department of diversity, equity and inclusion.

[53:58] They never have. So the Human Rights Commission

[54:02] is kind of carrying that and with very

[54:06] little authority. We too adopted a resolution saying

[54:11] linking racism to health. And so I think

[54:17] we have an opportunity here. So I hope

[54:20] we can endorse the recommendations and also perhaps

[54:26] write a letter of support. I'm going to

[54:29] share, see if I can share my screen,

[54:33] and I'll just put up the proposed language.

[54:38] Let's see if this works. Does that work?

[54:55] Okay. So this is the statement that, the

[55:00] garden committee that you guys are looking for

[55:02] us to endorse. And we would put it

[55:05] in a letter form. Joanne, may I add

[55:13] one thing? Sure. Mhmm. Just to clarify, the

[55:17] proposal that we would be looking for you

[55:18] to endorse is essentially two parts. One is,

[55:23] adoption of the statement, and the second is

[55:25] creation of a dedicated seat on the garden

[55:28] committee to essentially lead facilitate implementation of the

[55:32] effort. So there's the two parts to the

[55:34] proposal. Well, I think as part of the

[55:40] in the role of Board of Health, we

[55:42] can choose to adopt a statement. But, I

[55:45] mean, I think we could support the idea

[55:47] of a dedicated position on the garden committee,

[55:49] but obviously we don't have authority over that.

[55:53] My thought was simply endorsement of our proposal.

[55:57] Of course, you don't have authority to enact

[55:58] any of those things. Right. Any other comments?

[56:08] Does anyone want to make a motion? I

[56:19] think your work is certainly in line with

[56:22] the statement that we put together a couple

[56:27] of years ago about racial disparity and health

[56:30] and how they're intertwined. Would anyone like to

[56:37] make a motion? I move that the Board

[56:44] of Health adopt and support the resolution that

[56:48] was presented to us by the, what's called

[56:51] the Community Garden Committee and perhaps write a

[56:58] formal endorsement as well. So you're proposing adopting

[57:03] that statement or acknowledging that statement and supporting

[57:08] the dedicated position on the garden committee, both

[57:11] parts? Yes. With a letter. Did that affect?

[57:19] Yes. Thanks, Joanne. Is there a second for

[57:24] that? I'll second it. Thank you, Dallas. Any

[57:28] other discussion? I guess I just wish we

[57:39] had a little more information from the guarding

[57:44] committee itself or the Parks and Rec, like

[57:51] Because I just don't understand why with the

[57:59] explanation that this group has been given, which

[58:04] is not really an explanation, I I don't

[58:11] know if there's something, if we're going to

[58:13] do this, if we can also in our

[58:18] letter make a statement about how we, I

[58:24] mean, all the boards, everything's interconnected an effort

[58:30] to be a healthy community. So we would

[58:35] want to see, like, the Parks and Rec

[58:41] Committee be involved in this? Do you want

[58:51] to make an amendment to Cynthia's proposal that

[58:57] asks for Parks and Recs to have transparency?

[59:00] Well, I guess I'd like to know what

[59:01] Board members think of that idea. I just

[59:10] think that asking Parks and Rec to come

[59:15] to the Board of Health meeting on this

[59:18] particular issue, think I have to trust the

[59:24] presenters having gone to the Parks and Rec

[59:28] Commission And also, I think you all went

[59:31] to their meetings, right, and made statements. Have

[59:34] you done that, just to clarify? So I

[59:39] can address that. Our anticipated, next stop, and

[59:44] we've been making our choices about who we've

[59:47] spoken with and who we presented to based

[59:49] on really support and recommendations we've been receiving

[59:53] from individuals and representatives throughout the city, I

[59:57] I anticipate our next stop is to go

[1:00:00] back to parks and rec to the Commission.

[1:00:02] HAB We were hoping to be added to

[1:00:04] their agenda I'm not sure that that's going

[1:00:06] to happen, so I expect our next stop

[1:00:08] will be public comment at a Parks and

[1:00:11] Rec Commission meeting. One of the and so

[1:00:16] to be able to appear there with the

[1:00:18] same message we provided to you and to

[1:00:20] indicate support from both the Human Human Rights

[1:00:23] Commission and Board of Health would be powerful,

[1:00:27] I think. But that that is our anticipated

[1:00:30] next stop, if that helps fill in some

[1:00:33] of them. That's good. Yeah. I think that

[1:00:38] that's appropriate. Absolutely, appropriate than perhaps us calling

[1:00:42] in or calling out parks and recs this

[1:00:45] point. Yeah, no, I wasn't suggesting that we

[1:00:48] do that. I just was trying to figure

[1:00:53] out how we do understand them, understand what

[1:00:58] is the perspective. Mhmm. Rachel? It might be

[1:01:06] useful to hear, and I'm sorry that I

[1:01:07] didn't mention this earlier, and I know that

[1:01:09] you're in the middle of a vote, that

[1:01:10] the outreach to the garden committee when black

[1:01:15] gardeners left the garden was significant. Several gardeners

[1:01:20] wrote letters, several garden neighbors wrote letters. There

[1:01:23] was Oh, we've lost you. We lost you

[1:01:38] for a minute, Rachel. Are you back? I'm

[1:01:41] back. I'm back. Can you did you hear

[1:01:44] the part that I said that after several

[1:01:46] black gardeners left the garden? So let me

[1:01:48] reiterate. After several black gardeners left the garden,

[1:01:51] there was tremendous outreach from gardeners and garden

[1:01:55] neighbors to the garden committee to to say

[1:01:59] this is a problem, and there was no

[1:02:01] response to any of those. So, Janet, your

[1:02:06] I share in your being confounded about the

[1:02:09] lack of responsiveness. The only thing that we

[1:02:13] have been told is that it's a capacity

[1:02:14] and timing issue. We haven't heard anything else.

[1:02:18] Dallas? Yeah. Thank you. To me, this feels

[1:02:25] you know, while it's important to know the

[1:02:26] context and important to know what you know,

[1:02:29] how Parks and Rec and others may have

[1:02:31] responded or not or the the garden committee,

[1:02:35] the proposal on the table around the equity

[1:02:38] and sustainable statement in advancing racial equity and

[1:02:41] enhancing the health of the natural environment. I

[1:02:43] mean, that seems like something that would be

[1:02:46] in line of what we voted before as

[1:02:49] a board in our philosophy in general. And

[1:02:52] so regardless of how others may have reacted

[1:02:56] to this, it seems like the proposal on

[1:02:58] the table is in line with what our

[1:03:02] mission generally. Right? Thank you. Any other comments?

[1:03:08] We do have a proposal on the table.

[1:03:12] Any other discussion? Comments? Board members? Cynthia, do

[1:03:21] you want to restate your or is that

[1:03:24] too hard? I think you wanted to adopt

[1:03:30] the proposal, which was two parts, adopt the

[1:03:33] statement and support their interest in a dedicated

[1:03:41] position on the garden committee, and we would

[1:03:43] put that information in a letter. Was that

[1:03:47] your Well said for the motion. Thank you.

[1:03:52] Point of clarification, letter to whom? I mean,

[1:04:02] I'm just thinking here. I would recommend the

[1:04:05] director of Parks and Recreation and also perhaps

[1:04:10] the mayor. I was going to say Parks

[1:04:14] Recreation, the mayor and city council. I mean,

[1:04:16] this should be sort of. It's my understanding

[1:04:20] that some city councilors are involved in this

[1:04:22] initiative. Robin or Rachel, can you verify that

[1:04:26] or have been made aware of this issue?

[1:04:28] There are a number of city councilors who've

[1:04:30] been made made aware of the issue whom

[1:04:32] we've had informal conversations with. Those that I'm

[1:04:35] aware of have all expressed strong support. I

[1:04:38] believe there are still a handful we may

[1:04:41] not have yet had conversations with, but I

[1:04:44] believe the majority is aware of this initiative.

[1:04:49] All right. Any other questions or comments? You're

[1:04:54] ready for a vote? I'm going go around

[1:04:56] my screen. Suzanne? Yes. Cynthia? Yes. Janet? Yes.

[1:05:05] Dallas? Yes. Joanne? Yes. Thank you very much.

[1:05:10] Thank you all for your hard work. We

[1:05:12] appreciate your coming, and we appreciate all that

[1:05:15] you have done. You've taken a lot of

[1:05:18] time and gathered a lot of people to

[1:05:21] do this work. So thank you. Thank you

[1:05:25] so much. Will formalize that and get a

[1:05:29] copy of that to you. Thank you so

[1:05:32] much to all of you. We really appreciate

[1:05:34] your time and engagement and support. Thank you.

[1:05:38] Thank you so much. Thank you. All right.

[1:05:45] I apologize to the other people on our

[1:05:48] agenda for having to wait around, but we're

[1:05:50] moving along. Amy, do you want to introduce

[1:05:56] Kiko? Hi, Kiko. Welcome. If you'd like to

[1:06:00] introduce yourself, tell us a little bit about

[1:06:02] you and what you do at DHHS. Thanks,

[1:06:06] Amy, and hello, everyone. Thank you, Chair Levin

[1:06:08] and everyone for having me this evening. Can

[1:06:10] you hear me okay? Yes. Okay. So my

[1:06:14] name is Keiko Mallon, and I am the

[1:06:16] Prevention Team Director for the City of Northampton

[1:06:19] Department of Health and Human Services, and I'm

[1:06:21] grateful to Commissioner O'Leary for making some time

[1:06:23] on the agenda for me today. I would

[1:06:28] love to learn more about all of you

[1:06:30] and what you do. I've met Dallas before,

[1:06:32] but everyone else I don't know. But I

[1:06:34] guess my goal here is just to tell

[1:06:36] you a little bit about myself and what

[1:06:38] I do at DHHS. I don't know how

[1:06:41] much background you all have about this work,

[1:06:43] so I'm just going to try to give

[1:06:44] a high level overview. If there are questions,

[1:06:47] please feel free to jump in. Just a

[1:06:50] little bit about myself. I am a seasoned

[1:06:52] public health professional. I've been doing public health

[1:06:54] work for more than three decades. I'm a

[1:06:58] Massachusetts native. I grew up in the Boston

[1:07:00] area, but I moved out West in the

[1:07:02] late 80s. First public health job was working

[1:07:05] for a feminist women's health center in Portland,

[1:07:08] Oregon. We were an abortion provider, so I

[1:07:10] cut my public health teeth on public health

[1:07:12] activism, women's health, and being on the front

[1:07:15] lines of a very controversial line of work.

[1:07:18] From there, did lots of other things, ended

[1:07:20] up in California when I did my master's

[1:07:23] in public health at UC Berkeley, and also

[1:07:25] social work. I have a dual degree. I

[1:07:28] came back to the East Coast actually after

[1:07:30] that, and I was in Vermont for a

[1:07:32] while running a startup nonprofit called Grounds for

[1:07:35] Health, which is still in existence today that

[1:07:37] was founded by Green Mountain Coffee Roasters and

[1:07:40] a couple of other coffee companies in Vermont

[1:07:42] to provide healthcare services to women in coffee

[1:07:45] growing communities. So that was a wonderful I

[1:07:48] really loved being back in New England. California

[1:07:50] called me back. I went back for another

[1:07:52] almost two decades and I'm now back in

[1:07:55] Massachusetts because my mother is getting older and

[1:07:58] felt the need to be closer by. So

[1:08:00] I'm actually living in a big house with

[1:08:02] my husband, my father-in-law, and my mother, which

[1:08:06] has been interesting. In making this huge plan

[1:08:09] to come to Western Mass, I was so

[1:08:11] fortunate to meet Meredith and to be able

[1:08:14] to find this job that I'm now loving

[1:08:17] at the Department of Health and Human Services.

[1:08:19] So my background really is in maternal child

[1:08:21] health. Most of the work that I've done

[1:08:22] is women's health, maternal child health. I'm learning

[1:08:25] about substance misuse prevention, substance use prevention. That's

[1:08:28] the work that our prevention team does. But

[1:08:30] my knowledge of public health principles, my commitment

[1:08:33] to racial equity this last conversation is very

[1:08:36] much in line with so much of the

[1:08:37] work that I've done in public health. My

[1:08:39] last job was working for Alameda County Public

[1:08:41] Health Department, which has a pretty good national

[1:08:44] reputation for being on the cutting edge of

[1:08:46] understanding that public health is social justice and

[1:08:48] that racial justice is integral to ensuring the

[1:08:51] health of all members of our community, that

[1:08:54] no one is free when others are oppressed.

[1:08:56] This is certainly an ideology that I embody

[1:08:58] in all of my work. Getting to know

[1:09:01] the demographics here in Western Mass, which are

[1:09:03] very different from those of Oakland, California, I

[1:09:05] think you can probably imagine. So that's been

[1:09:08] a shift. A big part of my work

[1:09:09] in the past has been looking at the

[1:09:11] disparate rates of infant mortality, that Black babies

[1:09:14] die at two to three times the rate

[1:09:15] of White babies, Black mamas die at three

[1:09:18] to four times the rates of White mamas,

[1:09:19] and how this is something that is a

[1:09:21] result of structural racism and can only be

[1:09:23] addressed by dismantling structural racism. So, is the

[1:09:27] sort of the viewpoint that I bring into

[1:09:29] my work. What I do at the Department

[1:09:31] of Health and Human Services is I have

[1:09:33] five staff who report to me. One of

[1:09:35] them is the Hampshire Hope Coalition Coordinator. So

[1:09:38] Hampshire Hope is our coalition that was founded,

[1:09:40] I believe, in 2015 to address the opioid

[1:09:43] epidemic, a multidisciplinary, very diverse stakeholder organization that's

[1:09:49] been doing incredible work engaging people in the

[1:09:53] community to understand how we can work together

[1:09:55] to reduce deaths from opioid overdoses. Out of

[1:09:59] that program, so the Hampshire Hope coordinator is

[1:10:01] a fairly new person named Taylor McAndrew, who's

[1:10:04] been on the job for about six months.

[1:10:05] She reports to me and is beginning to

[1:10:08] think deeply with the coalition about the opioid

[1:10:10] settlement funds and how those can be used

[1:10:12] to address this ongoing issue in our community

[1:10:16] and really the voices of people who use

[1:10:19] drugs and their families and understanding the best

[1:10:21] way to spend that money, which was people

[1:10:24] who were hurt by what happened in the

[1:10:26] opioid industry are the ones who should be

[1:10:28] helping us to figure out how to spend

[1:10:29] those funds. So excited about that work that

[1:10:32] she'll be thinking about. Out of Hampshire hope

[1:10:34] came a program called the Drug Addiction Recovery

[1:10:36] Team or DART, which is fairly well known

[1:10:39] in Northampton. We've expanded from Northampton out into

[1:10:43] many communities in Hampshire County, as well as

[1:10:46] Hampden County and Berkshire County. The Drug Addiction

[1:10:49] Recovery Team is a post opioid overdose outreach

[1:10:51] effort. So we work with first responders, law

[1:10:54] enforcement, EMS, fire. It varies from community to

[1:10:57] community. The people who are responding to the

[1:11:00] scene of an overdose and helping to get

[1:11:02] that person the attention that he or she

[1:11:05] or they might need. So really very client

[1:11:07] centered, the referral is made into our system,

[1:11:11] and then we connect person with a recovery

[1:11:13] coach who can really understand what that person's

[1:11:16] goals are. Harm reduction focused really just it's

[1:11:19] about saving lives. It's not necessarily about getting

[1:11:21] people to detox or mandating recovery. It's about

[1:11:24] understanding what's going on with folks and connecting

[1:11:27] them to those resources that they most need

[1:11:28] to be the healthiest they can be. That

[1:11:31] program is an amazing program that is going

[1:11:34] through lots of changes now as we expand,

[1:11:36] and we have also two new staff, our

[1:11:39] two DART coordinators who report to me who

[1:11:41] are doing this work and getting to know

[1:11:42] them and getting to know our partners and

[1:11:45] understanding how we can strengthen and further expand

[1:11:47] the DART program has been really interesting for

[1:11:49] me in these last six months that I've

[1:11:51] been on the job. We also have Kara

[1:11:54] McLaughlin, who is the Northampton Prevention Coalition Coordinator.

[1:11:58] So that's our primary prevention coalition. So substance

[1:12:02] use prevention, she works mostly with youth in

[1:12:05] the Northampton Public School System, primarily in the

[1:12:07] high school, but is also engaged with elementary

[1:12:11] school staff and students, as well as the

[1:12:13] middle school. And Kara is also somebody who

[1:12:16] is really a champion for and racial equity

[1:12:19] in our community and involving young people. So

[1:12:23] again, nothing about us without us, really wanting

[1:12:25] to have much more authentic youth engagement on

[1:12:28] the coalition and to encourage everyone to think

[1:12:31] about our privilege as white people. Many of

[1:12:36] us in this work are white people. I'm

[1:12:39] used to working in an environment that's much

[1:12:40] more diverse. So I think we're all really

[1:12:42] thinking about what that means and how we

[1:12:44] can diversify our work workforce, and Cara is

[1:12:46] certainly at the forefront of that conversation. And

[1:12:49] then finally, I work also with Melissa Alouisi,

[1:12:52] who is a brilliant technology manager who is

[1:12:55] helping us to think about our database infrastructure

[1:12:58] and a burgeoning health information exchange data repository

[1:13:02] that will be a place where we can

[1:13:05] sort of collect data sets of publicly available

[1:13:09] de identified data related to opioid overdose, but

[1:13:12] also other public health concerns that the public

[1:13:14] can access. We're working on building that. It's

[1:13:16] a ways off, but she is the person

[1:13:18] championing that and is really doing a wonderful

[1:13:21] job. I didn't mention the names of the

[1:13:23] two DART coordinators. They are Kathy Cotunio and

[1:13:25] Kate Shapiro. So I think that's kind of

[1:13:28] the high level of what I do. I

[1:13:30] also have some responsibility for the Public Health

[1:13:32] Excellence Grant, which I think some of you

[1:13:34] may be familiar with, which is really about

[1:13:36] regional infrastructure building for public health in the

[1:13:40] Commonwealth Of Massachusetts and in Western Mass, where

[1:13:43] we have fewer public health resources compared to

[1:13:46] the Eastern part of the state. So really

[1:13:48] thinking about how we can share our expertise

[1:13:50] in the city of Northampton to help smaller

[1:13:52] boards of health be able to meet the

[1:13:54] public health needs in their communities. I do

[1:13:56] some administrative responsibilities related to that grant. I

[1:13:59] know I'm a fast talker, something that East

[1:14:02] Coast people are a little bit more open

[1:14:03] to than West Coast people, but I hope

[1:14:05] I didn't overwhelm you with too much information.

[1:14:08] That was fairly clear, and I'm happy to

[1:14:10] take any questions. Thank you. That was very

[1:14:13] clear and very comprehensive, and welcome. You. Board

[1:14:18] members, any questions? Do we say your name

[1:14:21] Kiko? It's Kiko. Yeah, Kiko Mallon. Questions? Comments?

[1:14:28] Not a question. Just so happy you're here.

[1:14:31] It's just going to be great to work

[1:14:33] with you. Thank you so much. It's wonderful

[1:14:35] to meet all of you and to listen

[1:14:37] to this conversation today. Really appreciate all of

[1:14:39] your thoughts about these issues. Thank you for

[1:14:43] coming. Sure. Thanks, Kiko. Oh, I forgot one

[1:14:49] thing. Could I if I just could have

[1:14:50] one more minute, which is that February is

[1:14:52] Black History Month. And I was chatting with

[1:14:55] Meredith about what we might do as a

[1:14:58] Department of Health and Human Services to recognize

[1:15:00] that. I'm thinking about it's an opportunity to

[1:15:03] obviously reinvigorate our commitment to racial justice, but

[1:15:06] it's also really an opportunity to celebrate Black

[1:15:08] excellence, Black joy. What is it that we

[1:15:12] want to do? I don't know that we've

[1:15:15] decided just yet. We're thinking about APHA and

[1:15:18] other public health associations will obviously put out

[1:15:22] language and messaging about Black History Month, and

[1:15:25] we may do some posts on our Facebook

[1:15:28] page. There was maybe some thought about a

[1:15:30] proclamation or some kind of statement, So I

[1:15:33] just wanted to raise that as something maybe

[1:15:35] for you all to think about as we

[1:15:37] also figure out what we're doing internally. If

[1:15:42] anybody has any recommendations or thoughts about that,

[1:15:46] we could send them to Kiko or Meredith.

[1:15:48] And if you have a proposal for us,

[1:15:50] why don't you bring that through Meredith, and

[1:15:53] she can send it to us. How's that?

[1:15:55] That sounds great. I'll do that. Thank you.

[1:15:57] Great. Thank you so much. All right. Darrell,

[1:16:04] thanks for staying with us. No problem. All

[1:16:09] right. Next on our agenda is to review

[1:16:12] the model, state tobacco regulation recommendations. And so

[1:16:24] we got a lot of information and some

[1:16:26] confusing documents. So we have a document that's

[1:16:32] called twenty twenty two model regs. And that

[1:16:35] has some checkboxes on that front page. And

[1:16:38] then we got one that was 2023. And

[1:16:42] it's a little confusing because there was nothing

[1:16:44] checked on the front of that one. But

[1:16:47] I think I reviewed this with Meredith and

[1:16:51] I think we're going to use the 2023

[1:16:53] document. And what I did is I sort

[1:16:56] of checked off the boxes on that front

[1:16:59] page. So let me see if I can,

[1:17:01] we can use that front page as sort

[1:17:04] of a way to frame our discussion, of

[1:17:07] take a topic, one topic at a time.

[1:17:10] Cynthia? Yes. Joanne, can I just give a

[1:17:14] little background for our Yes, yes, sure? So

[1:17:19] this is really making the sausage, Janet, and

[1:17:24] Dallas. So What we have done up to

[1:17:26] this point has been a little bit different.

[1:17:30] To let you know, Cheryl Sabara has been

[1:17:33] in the tobacco world work for many, many

[1:17:36] years. Forty five. Oh, jeez. Okay. Hi, Janet.

[1:17:43] I worked with her for the first ten

[1:17:46] of them maybe. And the reason Cheryl's here

[1:17:50] is because she has so much history. And

[1:17:52] the reason we do what we do here

[1:17:54] is that Meredith reminded me today we had

[1:17:57] regs in 2012, '20 '14, '20 '15, '20

[1:18:01] '18 and 2020. So about every two years

[1:18:06] what happens is the tobacco companies get smart

[1:18:10] and then people like Cheryl go to court

[1:18:13] and find out if we could just tweak

[1:18:15] our language a little bit we wouldn't have

[1:18:17] lost so many cases. And so that's why

[1:18:19] Cheryl is here. And so I think I'm

[1:18:22] going to steal your word Cheryl, this is

[1:18:24] a whack a mo game doing this kind

[1:18:27] of policy. We do it on a regular

[1:18:30] basis. It appears to be pretty tedious but

[1:18:33] I think the way it's outlined tonight, what

[1:18:37] our history in Northampton has been is that

[1:18:40] we're a little bit more aggressive in our

[1:18:44] tobacco regulations. Is that the right word Cheryl?

[1:18:48] Yes, although the state law was much more

[1:18:52] comprehensive than we ever anticipated it would be.

[1:18:56] And when did state law get updated? That

[1:18:59] was just this fall? It was passed by

[1:19:01] It was signed by Governor Baker in November

[1:19:04] of twenty nineteen. It went into effect immediately

[1:19:08] as to the electronic nicotine delivery systems. The

[1:19:12] combustible pieces went into effect in June of

[1:19:15] twenty twenty. Oh, I thought it was more

[1:19:18] recent than that. Well, COVID makes it seem

[1:19:21] much more recent because there wasn't a lot

[1:19:24] of activity, when the law actually went into

[1:19:27] effect because no one was going into stores.

[1:19:30] Yeah. So just to give you that history,

[1:19:33] the state had a set of regulations but

[1:19:36] we always had a stronger set in this

[1:19:39] community because we really take serious the impact

[1:19:43] of tobacco on children. So now the state

[1:19:46] has kind of upped its game, but we

[1:19:48] want to make sure that our regulations reflect

[1:19:52] with this board how we want to approach

[1:19:54] this particular issue. I just wanted to give

[1:19:57] you that background. Suzanne has been here forever.

[1:20:00] She knows how we tweak these things and

[1:20:04] we have some opportunities tonight to do some

[1:20:07] different things. Just wanted to provide you with

[1:20:10] that because I know there were a lot

[1:20:11] of documents going back and forth But I

[1:20:14] think the latest latest one you got that

[1:20:16] says yes and no and may not have

[1:20:18] colors on it. I think, we could walk

[1:20:20] through that. So thank you for that time.

[1:20:23] Yeah. So Cheryl has been our guide and

[1:20:26] we often and usually take her recommendations. I'm

[1:20:30] going to share let's try my share my

[1:20:33] screen again. So this is the 2023 sample

[1:20:44] regulations. And what I did is I answered

[1:20:47] these yesno questions. Meredith put it in this

[1:20:51] format basically to say which things we already

[1:20:55] have in our regulations and which things we

[1:20:57] need to discuss. So if it says yes,

[1:21:01] that means we've already approved it and it's

[1:21:03] in our current local regs. And if it's

[1:21:07] no, that it's something we need to address

[1:21:09] whether we want to include it or how

[1:21:11] we want to include it. So Meredith suggested

[1:21:15] that we go through this checklist. I thought

[1:21:17] we'd do that first and then we can

[1:21:20] go through the document. And I have colors

[1:21:22] on my document. I don't know if you

[1:21:24] do, but I have green and yellow, yellow

[1:21:27] being the state regs and green being the

[1:21:31] proposed local regs. But we can do that

[1:21:33] in a minute. I'm sorry, Joanne. Meredith asked

[1:21:37] me to remind everyone that we are not

[1:21:39] voting on anything. We are just having a

[1:21:42] discussion about a direction and then we'll get

[1:21:46] a draft and then probably another draft. So

[1:21:49] there's no votes tonight. That's the way I

[1:21:52] understand it, right? Right. Yeah. So once we

[1:21:55] sort of have this discussion and sort of

[1:21:57] have a proposal of what we would want

[1:21:59] to include in our new regs, Meredith will

[1:22:02] put it all together. And we'll have a

[1:22:04] draft document. And we can discuss that. And

[1:22:08] we're not actually going to vote on it

[1:22:10] until we have a hearing, a forum, a

[1:22:12] public forum, so we can get input from

[1:22:16] the public. And that would be the time

[1:22:18] that we vote. But we would probably want

[1:22:20] to come to a consensus on what we

[1:22:22] are interested in including in our proposal that

[1:22:25] goes that gets presented to the public. Does

[1:22:29] that sound right, Cheryl? Yes. So let's go

[1:22:33] through these. No permit renewal if there's an

[1:22:37] outstanding fine. We already have that in our

[1:22:41] regs. Unless someone has a problem with that,

[1:22:44] I don't think we need to have any

[1:22:46] further discussion. Just stop me if you have

[1:22:48] a question. No permit renewal if three sales

[1:22:51] to persons 21. I believe we already have

[1:22:54] that in our regs. I need to I

[1:22:58] don't think you do. But we can check

[1:23:03] on that. Okay. Because that's a relatively new

[1:23:07] strategy. Do you have any comments on We

[1:23:12] had started going through this before. I can't

[1:23:16] see the top of this. Is this still

[1:23:17] say 2022 on it? This top of this

[1:23:20] one is the 2023. It's slightly different. This

[1:23:24] the last thing that got sent out? Yes.

[1:23:27] Just went with the agenda, but there were

[1:23:30] lots of documents. At least on my computer,

[1:23:33] they end up all over the page and

[1:23:35] I miss some of them. A little confusing,

[1:23:37] but I do, I have, when we started

[1:23:41] going over the same thing that said 2022

[1:23:44] on the top. They really are the same.

[1:23:46] It did say that we had discussed that

[1:23:50] we did have that number two. That's what

[1:23:53] Meredith has said. What I have for your

[1:23:57] 2022 says you don't. But I can just

[1:24:02] follow-up with that. That's no big deal. Okay.

[1:24:05] Well, let's talk about it. How do people

[1:24:07] feel about that? If there's three sales to

[1:24:09] persons 21, which we think is sort of

[1:24:11] a big no no, Do we not renew

[1:24:19] their permit? Cheryl, the state regs are thirty

[1:24:24] six months? The state regs are thirty six

[1:24:27] months and what you would do before you

[1:24:30] would not renew a permit, you would have

[1:24:32] them in for a hearing determine whether or

[1:24:35] But if our regs say that the, what

[1:24:42] do you call it, tolling? Tolling period. The

[1:24:44] tolling period. That's a question you're going to

[1:24:47] have to decide. Right, because like in the

[1:24:50] case we just discussed, if the three times

[1:24:54] happened over a period of eight years, that's

[1:24:56] a very different thing to consider than if

[1:24:59] it happened over a period of thirty six

[1:25:02] months. That's one of the issues that you

[1:25:05] need to think about. You want to keep,

[1:25:08] well, we're jumping all over right now, there

[1:25:13] are two potentials here. Number one, you could

[1:25:18] go with the state penalty and tolling period

[1:25:22] if you want for all of the sections

[1:25:26] that are in the state law, And you

[1:25:29] could continue doing what you do locally, which

[1:25:33] is no tolling period for those that are

[1:25:37] unique to Northampton. That's one approach. The other

[1:25:41] approach would be to get rid of tolling

[1:25:44] periods altogether and just go back to the

[1:25:48] beginning of time and if, you know, there

[1:25:51] are three violations in twenty years or whatever,

[1:25:58] you know, you could do it that way.

[1:26:01] It's really up to you how you want

[1:26:03] to do that. Do you have any, do

[1:26:06] you have a recommendation? Well, I mean, years

[1:26:10] is a long time. I don't know. It

[1:26:17] would really be up to you and your

[1:26:19] staff. Do you have records that would go

[1:26:22] back? I mean, how long do your records

[1:26:25] go back? I don't know. You know, and

[1:26:30] how long do they go back for each

[1:26:33] retailer? Is it different? I don't know. So,

[1:26:38] I've been asked this question once before and

[1:26:41] now I think it's probably, it was probably

[1:26:43] Lisa, my colleague from MMA, that asked it

[1:26:46] because of you. We don't have any municipalities

[1:26:50] that don't have any tolling period. In fact,

[1:26:53] most municipalities had either twenty four or thirty

[1:26:57] six months. Now they can, the twenty four

[1:27:01] months are invalid because they're less strict than

[1:27:05] the state. But again, you know, I it's

[1:27:07] it's up to you. You don't have, you

[1:27:10] could have, you know, forty eight month, you

[1:27:13] could have a four year instead of a

[1:27:14] three year. It's really your decision. It's it's

[1:27:19] not frequent that we, well, we haven't seen

[1:27:25] no tolling period at all. But except in

[1:27:30] Northampton. I guess our goal was just not

[1:27:34] to continue to permit recurrent offenders like what's

[1:27:40] going to change? Well, that is why and

[1:27:44] I checked your regulation does not have it.

[1:27:47] Your current regulation does not have it. But

[1:27:50] if someone sells three times within a three

[1:27:54] year period, that's egregious and you may want

[1:27:58] to revoke that permit, not suspend it, but

[1:28:01] revoke it. There's another section in the new

[1:28:05] regulation that would say if there's any, if

[1:28:08] if the board thinks any violations, if if

[1:28:12] you have four or more violations and they're

[1:28:14] egregious, then you may want to revoke it.

[1:28:18] I mean, it's, there are two different sections

[1:28:21] that deal with revocations of permits. So it's,

[1:28:28] you may just want to reconsider it, whether

[1:28:30] you want to do no time limit at

[1:28:35] all, or you want to stay with what

[1:28:37] the state law says. I'm looking at the

[1:28:42] proposed regulations here in the case of four

[1:28:45] violations or repeated egregious violations of any section

[1:28:50] of the regulation as determined by the Board

[1:28:53] of Health and what we put in here

[1:28:56] is within a thirty six month period, the

[1:28:59] board shall hold a hearing, and after the

[1:29:01] hearing, may permanently revoke the tobacco sales permit.

[1:29:04] That's a pretty big stick if you're going

[1:29:07] to permanently revoke it. What do you consider

[1:29:09] egregious? Are there some things that are more

[1:29:11] egregious than others? Well, yeah. I mean, I

[1:29:14] think not having signs up is probably not

[1:29:17] egregious. I think selling to someone under the

[1:29:21] age of 21 once a year is pretty

[1:29:26] egregious. I think selling flavored tobacco products is

[1:29:31] pretty egregious and what we're seeing, what's happening

[1:29:34] now is that because the law is so

[1:29:38] strict, the state law is so strict, those

[1:29:41] stores that are tobacconists, you call them, we

[1:29:44] call them adult only retail tobacco stores, those

[1:29:47] stores now cannot sell flavored products. So the

[1:29:51] only advantage they have over a regular convenience

[1:29:57] store is that they can sell high test

[1:29:59] liquid nicotine. That's it. They can't sell anything

[1:30:02] else. So what we're seeing across the state

[1:30:06] is we're seeing these stores, needing to either

[1:30:12] change their business plan or they're selling illegal

[1:30:15] product product because they can't survive as a

[1:30:19] smoke shop that can only sell unless they're

[1:30:22] high end tobacconists that sell, you know, that

[1:30:25] have always sold, you know, high expensive cigars.

[1:30:30] Otherwise, smaller tobacconists, their business plan is not,

[1:30:36] has been basically wiped out by the new

[1:30:38] state law. Cheryl, would we not have to

[1:30:42] define egregious, which sounds like a complicated matter?

[1:30:49] Well, egregious is one of those words that

[1:30:52] I would not have used, but for violations

[1:30:56] or repeated violations. So if, you know, we

[1:31:01] have some really unfortunately, we have some stores

[1:31:06] that are selling out of the back windows.

[1:31:10] They're hiding their flavored tobacco products in microwaves,

[1:31:16] and taking them out when they know people

[1:31:18] that are coming in. They're selling tobacco that

[1:31:23] doesn't have any excise stamps on it or

[1:31:26] that has out of state excise stamps on

[1:31:29] them. The DOR is confiscating cases and cases

[1:31:35] of menthol tobacco. So, think it's egregious is

[1:31:41] really, it's hard when you see it, you

[1:31:45] know it. When they've been reported to the

[1:31:49] Department of Revenue and, you know, you're getting

[1:31:52] calls and complaints about them. You know, we

[1:31:55] caught a furniture store selling flavored tobacco products

[1:31:59] to the kids that knew to go to

[1:32:01] that furniture store after school. So if it

[1:32:05] walks like a duck and talks like a

[1:32:06] duck, it's a duck and that's where the

[1:32:10] egregious piece comes in. So, I would go

[1:32:15] ahead. I'm sorry, go ahead, Suzanne. I was

[1:32:17] gonna say, if we're at the point of

[1:32:22] contemplating withdrawal of a licensure, think there would

[1:32:30] be substantial pushback if we had not defined

[1:32:34] egregious. I hope we don't get there, but

[1:32:39] that all leads me to the fact that

[1:32:43] I think that we had, I go back

[1:32:47] to a wise person, Cheryl Sabaro, who once

[1:32:49] said earlier on this call, we're all about

[1:32:52] compliance. Compliance, right. Not being punitive. And I

[1:32:59] think that there's trying to get to compliance

[1:33:05] and the other is confusing people who have

[1:33:08] to follow these regulations. And I think when

[1:33:10] we diverge from the state regs, especially updated

[1:33:15] state regs, we cause confusion, which does not

[1:33:21] help compliance. Correct. So by and large, unless

[1:33:26] there's something that really jumps out at me

[1:33:29] in this list, my perspective is to go

[1:33:34] with the new regs. Well, I think it's

[1:33:39] not really a question of going with the

[1:33:41] new regs. We have to take the state

[1:33:43] regs. No, I mean not going any stricter.

[1:33:47] We've always gone stricter. Half of our statement

[1:33:50] has been things other than And Cheryl's recommendation

[1:33:57] have been items that have not been in

[1:34:00] the state reg. So we've always done that.

[1:34:04] Can I jump in for a second? I

[1:34:05] know that, when we, do adapt regulations and

[1:34:09] we go to the hearing and it passes

[1:34:11] that the plan would be to have like

[1:34:14] a really strong education plan to like get

[1:34:17] them there because it is confusing for them.

[1:34:21] They're still confused on no menthol so we

[1:34:23] want to you know really do our best

[1:34:26] to to get them there. And then I

[1:34:28] know I'm jumping because Cheryl said we're still

[1:34:31] up at like, I think number two. But

[1:34:33] Cynthia, when we talked to Meredith today and

[1:34:36] we talked about the first violation, the state

[1:34:39] says one in seven, she was clear on

[1:34:41] saying one and second violation, seven days and

[1:34:44] third violation, thirty days. She wanted to say

[1:34:47] fourth violation would be permit revocation. That whether

[1:34:54] regardless of egregious, that would be her step

[1:34:59] as far as, like, the the violations that

[1:35:04] then will match up, I think, with the

[1:35:06] fines. Well, and then you need to consider

[1:35:10] if you don't have a tolling period, it's

[1:35:13] four violations from the beginning of time. Yeah.

[1:35:16] And I think that's what Suzanne was getting

[1:35:19] at, was saying we're about compliance, not about

[1:35:22] punishment. If someone hasn't had an offense for

[1:35:25] ten years and then has one that's technically

[1:35:29] a fourth offense, but they happened back in

[1:35:33] the 30s, do you really, does that, is

[1:35:38] that, are you getting compliance there or are

[1:35:41] you punishing? Right, right. Well, I think we

[1:35:44] would start fresh from these new regs. So,

[1:35:47] me just tell you what Conquer did a

[1:35:49] couple of nights ago. They did something that

[1:35:52] Suzanne has sort of suggested here. They have

[1:35:57] asked me to draft a reg that just

[1:36:00] incorporates the state law and that also has

[1:36:04] whatever is currently in existence in your own

[1:36:09] regulation, your own local strategies that are already

[1:36:15] in this reg. And that's what they wanted

[1:36:18] to do first. And they wanted to vote

[1:36:22] on that. And then, you know, a little

[1:36:25] bit, you know, further down the line, they

[1:36:28] would consider looking at other issues. And one

[1:36:32] of the reasons they wanted to do that

[1:36:34] is because right now, every retailer in Northampton

[1:36:40] has to comply with the state law, whether

[1:36:43] it's in your regulations or not. And Donna

[1:36:45] can attest to that. The collaborative and Meredith,

[1:36:51] there's been a lot of education, a lot

[1:36:53] of outreach, a lot of visits about what

[1:36:56] the state law says. Everyone's aware of what

[1:37:00] the state law says or should be because

[1:37:02] they've received written information, emails, and in person

[1:37:07] visits. So if you did just adopt the

[1:37:11] state, incorporate the state sections into what you

[1:37:16] currently have, you could do that even without,

[1:37:19] you could do it by voting, but you

[1:37:22] wouldn't even need to hold a public hearing

[1:37:23] because you're not changing anything. You're just incorporating

[1:37:28] what is already the law and then ones

[1:37:31] that have been the law since 2020. That's

[1:37:34] one approach that's pretty simple. Although in your

[1:37:43] case you would have to determine what you

[1:37:44] want to do with that tolling period. So

[1:37:48] I'm a little confused. Are you proposing that

[1:37:52] we keep our local regs and sort of

[1:37:55] mix in the state regs, which is what

[1:37:56] we're I'm saying that's an easy way to

[1:37:59] do it, but it doesn't incorporate some of

[1:38:03] the new strategies that we have. But it

[1:38:06] doesn't eliminate the strategies we've already put in

[1:38:10] place. It does not eliminate them at all,

[1:38:14] but it doesn't add some of the strategies,

[1:38:18] like the density strategies that are out there

[1:38:20] now. It doesn't incorporate them, you know, then

[1:38:25] you can do it the traditional way and

[1:38:27] just we'll look at all of this, we'll

[1:38:30] have a few working sessions, we'll go through

[1:38:32] it. There aren't that many new strategies that

[1:38:36] are in here for you because you've adopted

[1:38:40] a lot of these already. So it's up

[1:38:43] to you how you want to do this.

[1:38:46] And I know we're just on number two

[1:38:50] now. Yeah. There's so much to discuss. It

[1:38:55] seems to me that the tolling period's really

[1:38:58] crucial. It is. In all of these in

[1:39:03] all of It is. Mean, shouldn't we start

[1:39:06] with that knowing and making a decision about

[1:39:11] that? I that would be a prudent way

[1:39:14] to approach it because that really colors everything.

[1:39:19] Right. If I can just jump in for

[1:39:23] one second, I want to reiterate something that

[1:39:25] Cheryl just brought up, being a tobacco control

[1:39:27] officer with the Pioneer Valley Tobacco Control, we

[1:39:31] visit each and every store in Western Mass,

[1:39:34] 29 towns, actually 31 towns now, multiple times

[1:39:39] throughout the year. Not only educating, we're visiting

[1:39:43] and doing price checks for the state. We're

[1:39:45] bringing youth in to try and purchase tobacco.

[1:39:48] But the education part of it is the

[1:39:49] biggest part we do. And we spend a

[1:39:51] lot of time with the owners and the

[1:39:53] clerks, any anybody who's working at the store,

[1:39:56] answering questions, pointing out some of the items

[1:40:01] that they're carrying that may be, something they

[1:40:04] shouldn't have on their shelves, including still menthol

[1:40:06] and flavored items as they've known, you know,

[1:40:09] in three years now. So, we're repeating and

[1:40:12] repeating and repeating and repeating, the same information

[1:40:16] over and over. So, that egregious word comes

[1:40:18] in because I think mainly because, you know,

[1:40:22] you still get after all this education over

[1:40:25] and over and over multiple times throughout the

[1:40:26] year, they still say, oh, I didn't know.

[1:40:29] So, it's hard to really, you know, say,

[1:40:32] Oh, okay. So, how do we get that

[1:40:34] point across? We really do spend a lot

[1:40:39] of time with each and every one of

[1:40:40] them. We give out our cards, we give

[1:40:42] them our personal numbers, you know, we're constantly

[1:40:45] bringing in, guidance, you know, handouts, you know,

[1:40:49] answering any questions they might have, any anything

[1:40:52] at any time. If they have even a,

[1:40:55] you know, a vendor in the store saying,

[1:40:57] You can buy these, go ahead. You know,

[1:40:58] you can carry these. Don't worry about it.

[1:40:59] It's not in your estate laws. They can

[1:41:02] call us and say, Hey, before I purchase

[1:41:04] this, what do you think about this? Are

[1:41:05] they pulling the wool over our eyes? So,

[1:41:07] I mean, we really are out there giving

[1:41:09] them an abundance of education on where these

[1:41:12] laws are and even their local laws. Thank

[1:41:18] you. So, where to start? Well, I think

[1:41:29] Janet is on to something, but I think

[1:41:32] we can go through the checklist if you

[1:41:35] want to share your screen again. I think

[1:41:39] we if we just concentrate on these strategies

[1:41:44] and whether you have them or don't have

[1:41:46] them, I think that's a good idea. And

[1:41:50] is that this is, is that how you

[1:41:56] circle these? Because normally when we circle these,

[1:41:58] we circle these as to this is what

[1:42:00] I like to include in the regulation. This

[1:42:03] is whether they're currently in our policy or

[1:42:08] not. So I think number two is written

[1:42:10] wrong, as you say, that you think that's

[1:42:12] not currently in our policy. Number three is

[1:42:16] wrong, and number three is wrong also. We

[1:42:19] do have a cap, but I guess we

[1:42:22] do a Yes. Yeah. We do, but the

[1:42:24] question was whether we wanted to modify that.

[1:42:28] Okay. Well, you have a simple cap and

[1:42:30] you have the reducing cap. Okay. And I

[1:42:36] don't know you have a different license for

[1:42:38] a tobacconist than you do for a retail

[1:42:42] tobacco store. We do. Yep. I don't know

[1:42:52] what the difference is because I don't see

[1:42:55] a difference in the capping, but we can

[1:42:58] look at it. But you do. You have

[1:43:00] a separate, you have a tobacconist establishment permit

[1:43:03] holder and a regular permit holder. Oh, it's

[1:43:08] not clear whether that includes both? The cap

[1:43:11] includes both? No, the tobacco establishment is your

[1:43:18] definition of tobacconist, which is a store that

[1:43:23] doesn't allow anyone in who's 21. So you

[1:43:28] have two different permits and then you have

[1:43:30] a permit holder. So you have a tobacconist

[1:43:33] permit holder and a permit holder. I'm not

[1:43:37] sure why you have two. Well, think the

[1:43:42] tobacconists used to be able to sell flavors.

[1:43:44] Is that right? Yes, they did use to

[1:43:46] be able to sell flavors. Right. So maybe

[1:43:50] that's why you, but so did the, well,

[1:43:53] so did the convenience stores, but I, that's

[1:43:55] all right. Well, we can work on, I

[1:43:58] don't know that you need two separate permits

[1:43:59] is what I'm Unless you want to cap

[1:44:04] the number of tobacconists in the town versus

[1:44:08] the number of permit holders. Sounds like the

[1:44:11] new regulations cap Make it so strict. Yeah.

[1:44:16] There's no advantage to being a tobacconist anymore

[1:44:20] Unless you're a high end cigar shop and

[1:44:24] then you've always been that. I think Meredith

[1:44:28] wanted to look at what was our cap

[1:44:30] and then if we were under our cap,

[1:44:33] could we reduce it to where we were

[1:44:36] now? So say our cap is 20 and

[1:44:39] we only have 16 permits out there, let's

[1:44:41] reduce it to 16 and then we could

[1:44:43] always keep going if that's what we wanted

[1:44:45] to do, or we could stay there. I

[1:44:47] I Yeah. What we norm what the normal

[1:44:49] language is is that you set a cap

[1:44:52] and then the way you do it, also

[1:44:54] have the advanced cap so you would retire

[1:44:57] permits that were not that were returned because

[1:45:01] the person doesn't sell tobacco anymore or they

[1:45:04] close the business and don't sell it to

[1:45:07] someone else who wants a convenience store. And

[1:45:09] then you put language in there that says

[1:45:12] and the number of permits shall be reduced

[1:45:17] based on the number of permits that have

[1:45:19] been turned in. Right now your reg says

[1:45:21] 29. Right. I remember discussion about the difficulty

[1:45:30] in reducing the cap upon a sale of

[1:45:35] a business. We've cleaned that up. Okay. In

[1:45:39] the new language, it's much more clear. This

[1:45:44] is why I advocate starting from the position

[1:45:48] of the new state regs. Yeah, but the

[1:45:50] new state regs, of course, doesn't, don't address

[1:45:53] capping in the new state regs. So we've

[1:45:57] cleaned up, the TA providers have cleaned up

[1:46:00] the language on the capping section that I

[1:46:04] think will make you very happy because it

[1:46:05] it it's much cleaner. And you clearly, I

[1:46:09] don't think you have 29 anymore, right? Yeah,

[1:46:13] I don't think so. Yeah, so you would

[1:46:15] start with whatever the current number is. At

[1:46:18] one of the meetings I was at, and

[1:46:20] I've only been to a few, I think

[1:46:23] Meredith must have said that we have 24

[1:46:25] currently. Okay, that would make sense. So we

[1:46:30] could start there and then decrease them as

[1:46:32] they get returned. It seems as though we

[1:46:35] have decreased that cap every single time we

[1:46:38] have revisited these regs. Yeah. Which is great

[1:46:41] news. Which is great. That's a success. Absolutely.

[1:46:46] So if a business is sold, they can

[1:46:49] still transfer that license? The business, and this

[1:46:53] is a political decision, if the business is

[1:46:57] sold, let's say one convenience store is selling

[1:47:01] their entire business to a new owner. Okay.

[1:47:06] The new owner has the ability to capture

[1:47:08] that permit because when you're selling your business,

[1:47:12] you're selling your business with all the permits

[1:47:14] that you have. So, Newburyport tried years ago

[1:47:20] to change that and say once the business

[1:47:22] was sold, the permit gets retired and caught

[1:47:25] so much heat for it because the person

[1:47:27] who was selling their business had certain permits

[1:47:31] that allowed that business to operate. If they

[1:47:35] got rid of the tobacco sales permit, then

[1:47:37] that business wasn't as valuable as it was

[1:47:41] when it had the tobacco sales permit. So,

[1:47:43] as much as we might want to say

[1:47:45] we can't convert to a new owner, it

[1:47:49] just doesn't work politically. As long as it's

[1:47:52] a bonafide purchaser for value. You don't want

[1:47:55] sham sale. You want to make sure it's

[1:47:57] a real person who's coming in and buying

[1:48:00] it and someone's not just transferring it to

[1:48:02] their spouse or their child or something along

[1:48:05] those lines. I think our regs say that

[1:48:07] they can do that, but they have to

[1:48:09] reapply. Yes. We just clean the language up

[1:48:12] so that it's much easier to make sense

[1:48:16] of. So can I do we want to

[1:48:21] agree on that about reducing to whatever our

[1:48:24] current number is? Any comments on that? That's

[1:48:32] been our history and it's worked well for

[1:48:34] us. Yeah. Anybody else? You can't reduce it

[1:48:37] lower than what you currently have because then

[1:48:40] somebody has to turn in their permit for

[1:48:43] Yeah, I think actually one year we did

[1:48:45] the number we had plus one or something

[1:48:48] like that. Yeah, yeah, probably. Any other comments

[1:48:53] about that? Recommendation about no new permits within

[1:49:01] 500 feet of a school. We don't have

[1:49:03] that. No, we don't. Permits within existing within

[1:49:08] certain number of feet of an existing permitee.

[1:49:11] So those are density strategies. Meredith thought we

[1:49:16] should hold off on those because looking at

[1:49:21] environmental justice considerations. Yep. It's a thought and

[1:49:27] what you usually will find and DPH can

[1:49:33] run this for you is when you look

[1:49:36] at where your sales permits are and you

[1:49:39] map it out, you'll see that they're normally

[1:49:42] clustered in EJ districts. That's where you see

[1:49:48] the most permits, which is why there's the

[1:49:53] no new permit within x number of feet

[1:49:56] from an existing one to try to get

[1:49:58] to those clusters. But I get that. If

[1:50:02] you wanna wait on those two, then wait

[1:50:05] on those two. Cheryl, am I understanding that

[1:50:09] the four and five are not in the

[1:50:11] new state regs? Yes, those are local. Are

[1:50:16] local. Those are local strategies. All the capping

[1:50:18] strategies are local. Okay. So the things that

[1:50:23] we do currently have is the ban of

[1:50:26] smoking bars. It's not in this regulation. It's

[1:50:28] in our indirect It's in your secondhand smoke

[1:50:30] regulation. Minimum cigar packaging You have that. Pricing.

[1:50:37] Banning blunt wraps, we have that. You have

[1:50:39] that. Banning free distribution, we have that. You

[1:50:43] have the coupons. You have the self-service. You

[1:50:47] don't have an exemption for tobacconists, but I

[1:50:50] don't think you I don't know. I mean,

[1:50:52] the reason we added that exemption language is

[1:50:56] just because now that youth can't get into

[1:51:00] those stores, is there a rationale anymore for

[1:51:03] banning self-service displays? That's a decision you can

[1:51:09] make. And with some of these that you

[1:51:12] already have, we do have some better language,

[1:51:16] but it's the same regulation. So that's what's

[1:51:21] highlighted in green in the rest of this

[1:51:23] document is sort of Yeah, the green are

[1:51:25] the local strategies, know, statewide the local strategies.

[1:51:32] Yellow are the ones that are in the

[1:51:35] state law. So number 12. We have educational

[1:51:43] institutions. Right. Then the finding structure. That's the

[1:51:49] big one. It's a big one and the

[1:51:51] tolling period. Thirteen and fourteen. We want to

[1:51:55] align our finding structure to be the same

[1:52:00] as the state and basically I think Meredith's

[1:52:05] proposal is you take the state regs and

[1:52:08] our local regs and make them one document

[1:52:11] so that local stores have one document to

[1:52:14] look at. It's all in one place and

[1:52:18] our finding structure would be at the end

[1:52:20] and it's the same as the state structure.

[1:52:24] So it's not so confusing. Like, you know,

[1:52:26] we were all confused with this last hearing

[1:52:28] because is it a state reg or a

[1:52:30] local reg and all that stuff. So I

[1:52:33] think that's the proposals we do what the

[1:52:36] state does. Does that sound right, Cheryl? Yeah,

[1:52:40] that's what what many people are doing. Some

[1:52:43] municipalities like Medford, for instance, their Board of

[1:52:47] Health did not want to find someone a

[1:52:53] thousand dollars for a local penal for a

[1:52:57] local violation because they were concerned that these

[1:53:01] fines are so high and most of their

[1:53:04] stores are mom and pop stores. So they

[1:53:08] wanted to separate them out because their board

[1:53:11] was very concerned about the high level of

[1:53:15] fines. The other option the rationale behind unifying

[1:53:20] them is that it's really hard for a

[1:53:23] collaborative that has 31 different municipalities to know

[1:53:30] which are the local strategies versus the state

[1:53:35] strategies if they're working with an old regulation.

[1:53:40] Our new regulation, we have a program that

[1:53:45] we divide them out so that it's very

[1:53:47] clear for your tobacco inspectors to see which

[1:53:52] are state and which are local. So those

[1:53:56] are the pros and cons of both of

[1:53:58] them. So the fining structure is not in

[1:54:03] the new state regs? Yes, it is. Oh,

[1:54:06] it is. It is. The fining structure for

[1:54:09] the violations of the state law are 1,000,

[1:54:14] two thousand, five thousand. You determine the days

[1:54:20] of suspension, but it's 1,000, 2 thousand, 5

[1:54:24] thousand. So that's for selling to someone 21,

[1:54:28] not having the signage, selling flavored tobacco products,

[1:54:32] not having the manufacturer's letters, it's it's it's

[1:54:36] for almost any everything. Ban on free distribution,

[1:54:40] self-service out of package, those are all state

[1:54:43] laws. Selling without a permit, having a high

[1:54:47] nicotine contact in electronic delivery systems, most of

[1:54:52] the stuff is pursuant to the state law.

[1:54:57] The ones that wouldn't be are the sale

[1:54:59] of blunt wraps, ban on smoking bars, that

[1:55:04] those are local, the regulation of cigars, having

[1:55:08] tobacco sales in healthcare institutions and educational institutions,

[1:55:14] a requirement of displaying the mass DOR licenses,

[1:55:19] you know, violating the density minimums, those would

[1:55:25] be local. So the vast majority are state

[1:55:28] and then there are like a dozen or

[1:55:31] so local penalties. It would seem to me

[1:55:35] having two different fining structures would be extraordinarily

[1:55:40] confusing to us going forward and to the

[1:55:44] people with these licenses. Yeah, I yeah, that's

[1:55:48] what most people think. Are most municipalities keeping

[1:55:54] these documents separate or are they merging them

[1:55:57] into one? They're merging them. Janet? I guess

[1:56:03] I'm unclear about the idea of the two

[1:56:06] in terms of the fines with what you

[1:56:08] just said about, I think you said Medford.

[1:56:11] Because doesn't Medford, like all of us have

[1:56:15] to, I mean, might feel that it's too

[1:56:19] high a fine, but they still have to

[1:56:22] fine. Oh yeah, they have to fine at

[1:56:24] the 1,000, 2 thousand 5 thousand, except for

[1:56:28] the ones that I just talked about. Instance,

[1:56:31] they have a cigar packaging regulation that's not

[1:56:34] in the state law. So if you violate

[1:56:37] the cigar packaging regulation, you can get a

[1:56:40] $100 fine because it's not part of the

[1:56:42] state law. Okay. But so did they keep

[1:56:45] it as two separate documents or not? No,

[1:56:48] they put it in one document. Right. And

[1:56:50] then I can't share my screen right now,

[1:56:53] but then we have a list of which

[1:56:55] policies are subject to the state law fines

[1:56:59] and which are subject to the local regulation

[1:57:01] fines. So even though they thought that a

[1:57:04] thousand is too much. They can't do anything

[1:57:07] about that. I just wanted to be clear

[1:57:09] about that. Yeah, except if it's just a

[1:57:12] local strategy, not a state one. And we

[1:57:15] put them in one document. You still are

[1:57:17] just gonna have one document. You're just gonna

[1:57:19] have two columns with which fines are state

[1:57:22] fines and which fines are just local. And

[1:57:24] is your organization willing to actually put that

[1:57:28] document together? We've already done it. I mean,

[1:57:31] for us. Meredith sent you over a sample

[1:57:38] template. Oh, yeah. Just scroll down and you'll

[1:57:41] see it. It all the way up to

[1:57:43] 13. Yeah. So this combines so that what's

[1:57:47] in green is Key local. And what's yellow

[1:57:51] is mandatory is from the state. So But

[1:57:53] keep going. Go. Go. Go. Go. All the

[1:57:56] way down to 13, and you'll see how

[1:57:58] it's set up, Janet. The fines? Yes. I

[1:58:03] mean, it just So here you go, next

[1:58:04] page. So here's what we did. Again, we

[1:58:07] should have only one document. This is one

[1:58:10] document. But here it is. If you go

[1:58:12] with not unifying the fines, then you have

[1:58:16] a list that we created this list. Obviously,

[1:58:19] that's all the state fines, which is the

[1:58:22] same for everyone. And then the local policies

[1:58:25] are going to be unique to Northampton, whatever

[1:58:28] Northampton has, which isn't hard for us to

[1:58:32] take out. Right, so as long we decide

[1:58:37] that we wanna stick with all of what

[1:58:39] the state says and not go Then we

[1:58:42] take out both of these columns. Right. The

[1:58:45] columns are there for those folks like Medford

[1:58:49] who want separate finding structures. So now I'm

[1:58:54] confused, Ian, because I thought what you're saying

[1:58:56] is we wouldn't have, we'd have the same

[1:58:59] finding structure for all the things that are

[1:59:01] under state reg. Yes. But then for additional

[1:59:05] things, we have to have our own finding

[1:59:07] structure because you don't have a finding structure

[1:59:09] for things that aren't in the state regs.

[1:59:11] No, I'm making it more confusing than it

[1:59:14] needs to be. You can have these fines

[1:59:18] have to be 1,000, 2 thousand, 3 thousand

[1:59:21] for those that are state. Those that are

[1:59:24] in your local regulation, you can either choose

[1:59:28] to make all the fines the same as

[1:59:31] the state's or you have the legal authority

[1:59:35] to make your own violations 100, two hundred,

[1:59:40] three hundred or whatever. You can do whatever

[1:59:42] you want with ones that with violations that

[1:59:45] are not state violations. Right. Is that clear?

[1:59:51] Yeah. Okay. And then we put it all

[1:59:53] on one document. You put it up like

[1:59:55] this. You put it all on one document.

[1:59:59] Then you will have, if you see, you

[2:00:02] know, we say for the violations of all

[2:00:04] sections specific to Northampton, the fines are one,

[2:00:10] two, and three, or whatever it is. And

[2:00:13] then there's a section that says for those

[2:00:15] that are state violations, the fines are this.

[2:00:18] And the state one is going to be

[2:00:19] above that, I think. I think it'll be

[2:00:21] on page 11 or something. Yes. And we

[2:00:24] specify here, if you go back down, I'm

[2:00:28] sorry. If you go back down under the

[2:00:31] penalty section, you'll see violations. And then we

[2:00:35] have option one, which is to have state

[2:00:39] local distinctions between the fines. And then we

[2:00:43] have an option two, which is to have

[2:00:47] unified fines. Option two. Unified fines. And you

[2:01:01] don't need to make this decision tonight. You

[2:01:03] know, I can draft a regulation for you

[2:01:06] that has both of these options and you

[2:01:08] can decide, you know, when you're good and

[2:01:11] ready, what you what you wanna do. You

[2:01:18] want me to go home, I'm sure. Or

[2:01:22] just leave the meeting. So do you have

[2:01:25] a recommendation? So you said Medford is having

[2:01:29] their own? Well, I think it's much easier

[2:01:33] to just have a unified finding structure, especially

[2:01:37] since the vast majority of the regulations are

[2:01:39] going to be state violations anyway. But it's

[2:01:43] also, you know, you're increasing a fine from

[2:01:46] $100 for not selling cigars in the right

[2:01:51] packaging to a thousand. So, you know, it's

[2:01:55] unfortunately or fortunately for me, it's a decision

[2:01:59] that you need to make. Can I ask

[2:02:03] Donna a question about that Donna as far

[2:02:05] as like writing up that order to correct

[2:02:07] cease and desist stopping selling flavored tobacco and

[2:02:12] then defining both the state fines at a

[2:02:15] different price and then the local fines at

[2:02:19] their currently lower price? Does that make it

[2:02:22] more difficult or does it make sense? No,

[2:02:26] no, makes it more difficult as long as

[2:02:27] it's clear in the regulation on what the

[2:02:30] fine structure is and what falls under those.

[2:02:33] It's pretty clear. Okay. That's why we did

[2:02:37] the columns so that an inspector would have

[2:02:39] the regulation and could see which is which.

[2:02:44] Where it gets tough is when you have

[2:02:46] different, communities, different municipalities that are doing different

[2:02:50] things. Just got to familiarize yourself with what

[2:02:53] they're doing, and take a look at that.

[2:02:54] Which is challenging. Yeah, it is. That's where

[2:02:56] it gets confusing. And the suspension periods we

[2:03:02] decide? Yeah, the state requires that they be

[2:03:07] not less than or not, yeah, for a

[2:03:11] second offense, it's not less than one or

[2:03:15] more than seven unless a municipality wants them

[2:03:18] to be higher. So they give a lot

[2:03:22] of leeway on, except for that first sale

[2:03:25] to someone under 20 one. So yeah, you

[2:03:28] can set them. I think Meredith talked about

[2:03:32] where first violation says one to seven. She

[2:03:34] was just thinking one and then second violation

[2:03:37] seven. I think that makes perfect sense. And

[2:03:40] the third thirty. Third thirty. And then fourth,

[2:03:43] she really was talking about bringing them in

[2:03:46] to see whether they want to revoke the

[2:03:48] permit. And we have municipalities that have revoked

[2:03:53] permits, which has never happened before. We have

[2:03:57] this non no tolling period, but I've been

[2:04:00] on this board. I don't know how many

[2:04:02] years it is now. Fourteen, fifteen years. We've

[2:04:05] never revoked one. But we could have today.

[2:04:11] We could have in the hearing. Yeah. Based

[2:04:14] on So, I mean, it just shows how

[2:04:20] having a lack of a tolling period means

[2:04:26] you could be giving different judgments to different

[2:04:31] establishments based on number of years or how

[2:04:35] closely they're clustered or whatever, which is a

[2:04:39] judgment call. It's cleaner if we just use

[2:04:44] a unified finding structure does anyone have any

[2:04:55] thoughts about the tolling period because our current

[2:04:57] regs say no tolling period but it is

[2:05:00] pretty harsh Any other thoughts on that? Has

[2:05:08] it ever gotten in the way of anything

[2:05:10] that we tried to do? I would have

[2:05:17] to I think the way to I'm wondering,

[2:05:21] and I don't know the answer to this,

[2:05:23] but I'm wondering if Northampton is actually looked

[2:05:28] at when someone violates the law, if they

[2:05:31] actually look at the previous offenses. I don't

[2:05:34] know. And I don't know if Donna would

[2:05:36] know, because I don't think she's You've been

[2:05:39] doing this for a few years, right? Yeah,

[2:05:41] I've been doing the control of the CCO

[2:05:44] for about five years, but not at Northampton.

[2:05:47] Yeah, so going back, I don't remember Meredith

[2:05:51] ever mentioning to me a revocation because someone

[2:05:57] had three offenses that went back. No, no.

[2:06:00] I don't recall that either. I haven't I've

[2:06:02] looked back at some of the violations that

[2:06:04] have happened in the city and I've never

[2:06:06] seen where that's ever happened. Yeah. So I

[2:06:09] don't know whether you've been She has looked

[2:06:12] back like in this case, we did hear

[2:06:15] that there were two violations in the I

[2:06:17] don't know how far back they go. And

[2:06:20] I think moving forward, if we did it,

[2:06:22] we would start fresh. Everyone would have to

[2:06:24] start fresh because it's all new. But I

[2:06:28] guess that brings up the question is having

[2:06:30] no tolling period, is that fair? Well, you're

[2:06:35] also, I think, gonna have to look at

[2:06:37] what the violation actually is because selling to

[2:06:41] someone 21 is a relatively new law. So

[2:06:46] are you gonna go you probably could go

[2:06:48] back to someone 18 with not too much

[2:06:52] resistance, but selling flavored tobacco products, you did

[2:06:58] it in 2020. So there wasn't that law

[2:07:02] in effect fifty years ago. So would you

[2:07:08] know, I don't know how I mean, you'd

[2:07:09] have to look at what the violation is.

[2:07:13] Then years and years ago, the violation was

[2:07:15] just selling to someone 18. There weren't all

[2:07:19] of these other do you have a permit?

[2:07:21] Do you sell flavor? Do you sell e

[2:07:24] cigarettes? They didn't exist. So the tolling period,

[2:07:28] someone could argue that, wait a minute, isn't

[2:07:33] a second violation because never because it's a

[2:07:40] new law. I mean, could be argued. I

[2:07:43] mean, defend against that by saying, look, but

[2:07:47] you've had violations for tobacco sales before. But

[2:07:50] I don't. And so, the other thing I

[2:07:53] can mention too, is that we also get

[2:07:55] notices from state, who do their own, and

[2:07:59] also FDA who go in and do their

[2:08:01] own. So, they will let us know that

[2:08:03] they've had a sale. So, it may not

[2:08:05] be us locally doing it and it may

[2:08:07] not be the coalition doing it, but, we're

[2:08:10] getting notices that it's happening elsewhere also. Are

[2:08:13] sales happening. And as far as the tolling

[2:08:15] period, when, you know, I do a lot

[2:08:16] of hearings in a lot of different towns

[2:08:18] and when the, where the tolling period kind

[2:08:21] of comes into play is when, you know,

[2:08:23] they have repeat offenders and they're trying to

[2:08:25] go back to see when the last sale

[2:08:26] was. And when they have that tolling period

[2:08:28] in place, it never fails. They just missed

[2:08:30] it by a day or a week. And

[2:08:32] they're like, well, we got to throw that

[2:08:35] one out because we just passed that thirty

[2:08:38] six month mark. What about the fact that

[2:08:42] I think with this last one that we

[2:08:44] had, there was more than one violation. So

[2:08:48] are those count, is it I mean, you

[2:08:51] went in, Donna, at one time, but there

[2:08:54] were many violations. So municipalities do that. They

[2:08:57] compile. So if you go in and you

[2:08:59] find multiple violations, they can say, here's number

[2:09:01] one, here's number two, here's number three, boom,

[2:09:04] you're already at that Right, so then you

[2:09:06] get to keep that. Most municipalities don't stack

[2:09:11] them unless it's a really bad actor, but

[2:09:14] that's certainly up to you whether you want

[2:09:16] to stack them or not. It sounds harsh

[2:09:23] what we're doing but it also gives us

[2:09:26] a history right? I mean as opposed to

[2:09:30] the clock stopped and now we have a

[2:09:32] clean slate is I don't know it's a

[2:09:36] little bothersome to me. Well you could also

[2:09:39] increase the tolling period if you want to

[2:09:43] five years or to ten years. I'm just

[2:09:47] concerned with no tolling period at all. Okay.

[2:09:51] But you could certainly you could be stricter

[2:09:54] than the state law and have a much

[2:09:56] longer tolling period if you want. Our local

[2:10:04] regs as they are now, is it may

[2:10:07] suspend and not shall? It shall. No, it

[2:10:10] shall. It is shall. Okay. Because I was

[2:10:12] wondering why maybe that's why we didn't have

[2:10:14] suspensions because we could make that discretion. But

[2:10:16] if it was shall, then So we gave

[2:10:23] an exemption to our own regs earlier this

[2:10:26] evening. Well, because the regs, the violation was

[2:10:33] on the state regs and the state regs

[2:10:35] were new. Right. That was Meredith's recommendation. Yeah,

[2:10:39] that make, that's what everyone has been doing.

[2:10:42] Okay. Shell and may could be very important

[2:10:51] if we don't have a tolling period and

[2:10:56] we purposely closed shell because we didn't want

[2:10:59] to have the wiggle room to be swayed

[2:11:04] by one factor or another. We wanted to

[2:11:08] be make sure we were fair to everyone.

[2:11:14] That's why you have Shell. So I think

[2:11:25] the two issues that are still outstanding are

[2:11:28] the tolling period and whether we're going to

[2:11:31] keep the state fines for everything or have

[2:11:33] our own fines. Yep. And you've already you've

[2:11:38] got the cap. We know we want to

[2:11:40] reduce the core number and then we want

[2:11:43] to clean up the language. We're going to

[2:11:46] hold off on the buffer zone around schools

[2:11:50] and around new retailers. I don't know whether

[2:11:54] you want to increase the the price amount

[2:11:57] for the minimum cigar packaging. Oh, that was

[2:12:01] a yeah. Yeah. We tied it to the

[2:12:03] consumer price index and it went up. Cheryl,

[2:12:10] if we specify a price, do we need

[2:12:18] to redo the regs every time we change

[2:12:21] that price? You would need to amend the

[2:12:26] reg because it's now a stricter Well, it's

[2:12:33] tied to the consumer price index. Okay, well

[2:12:35] that So you wouldn't need to because it

[2:12:36] says right in it, it's tied to the

[2:12:38] consumer price index. So no, you wouldn't need

[2:12:41] to do that. You would just send a

[2:12:42] notice to all the retailers saying due to

[2:12:45] the CPI, the prices are now this because

[2:12:49] they know it's tied to the consumer price

[2:12:51] index. That's the adjustment that I was looking

[2:12:56] for. Yeah. Or else we have to have

[2:12:58] a new hearing? No, you don't have to

[2:13:03] do that. Even though it's stricture, but you

[2:13:06] would want to send a letter out to

[2:13:07] them. Sure. All right, I think it's reasonable

[2:13:12] to include that. So tolling period, fining, suspensions,

[2:13:24] and revoking where we're stuck. And it's just

[2:13:36] a draft, right? You might want to talk

[2:13:39] more to Meredith about that and see what

[2:13:45] she thinks. Amy? Because I'm just not certain.

[2:13:54] And again, she would know and Donna would

[2:13:56] know much better than I am, whether you've

[2:13:58] run into cases where you've had to go

[2:14:00] back like twenty years and see what the

[2:14:04] violations have been. I just don't do you

[2:14:07] know Donna whether you've. Yeah, we haven't had

[2:14:11] to go back twenty years, but I don't

[2:14:12] think we would be able to find that

[2:14:14] much history. That's what I'm thinking. You're sort

[2:14:20] of saying even logistically it doesn't make sense.

[2:14:23] Logistically you should have some kind of cap

[2:14:25] on it. Every time someone has come to

[2:14:29] us I just know no matter who the

[2:14:32] inspector was there always was a history. It

[2:14:37] seems like we had the history I don't

[2:14:40] know if the filing system has changed or

[2:14:43] whatever. Well, you would have had the history

[2:14:46] for, let's see, how many Dennis Lacourse did

[2:14:50] some of your inspections, right? Would be records

[2:14:54] of that. Before Dennis, I don't know. Well,

[2:15:00] let's put it, tobacco control, the regulation started

[2:15:04] in about 1994. So I think that's when

[2:15:10] the history probably, the history wouldn't go back

[2:15:13] before that, put it that way. Yeah. Sure.

[2:15:17] Yeah. Most of our stores probably have new

[2:15:18] owners since then, but Yeah. Not all. True.

[2:15:24] So then you'd have to take that into

[2:15:26] consideration because the violation goes with the owner.

[2:15:29] Right. Instead of saying amount of years, can

[2:15:34] we say going back say till 2010, like

[2:15:38] put a year on it? Sure, you can

[2:15:41] do anything. So it'll keep getting longer as

[2:15:45] time goes on, but it wouldn't be anything

[2:15:48] prior to your You could do that. For

[2:15:52] some reason, and I don't know what it

[2:15:54] is, Amy, when you and I were meeting

[2:15:57] with Meredith today, she was, no, we're gonna

[2:16:01] continue our current practice. Well, then that's why

[2:16:04] I said you may wanna talk to because

[2:16:06] they have a reason and she may have

[2:16:10] a strategy and a standard operating procedure for

[2:16:13] this that we just don't know. Yeah. I

[2:16:17] mean, far as fines go, I would say

[2:16:19] let's go with the state fines. They're higher,

[2:16:22] You know, let's just go with that. They

[2:16:24] are. It is easier. Easier. I I mean,

[2:16:27] I feel comfortable with that. With the unified,

[2:16:30] right? Yeah. And then we'll take the lower

[2:16:34] end of the suspensions of one, seven and

[2:16:36] thirty. Mhmm. And potentially the fourth as a

[2:16:42] permit revocation. Mhmm. And we can take out

[2:16:45] the word egregious. Because his hand doesn't like

[2:16:50] this. Well, just think I don't blame you.

[2:16:54] If it's not defined, I think people can

[2:16:57] always protest it and I would prefer it

[2:17:00] to be cleaner. You know, Suzanne, that word

[2:17:04] came up again this afternoon when Amy and

[2:17:06] I were talking Meredith and Donna you probably

[2:17:10] know this that each inspector sort of has

[2:17:13] a sense of what's egregious or not and

[2:17:17] know and it's one of those gut level

[2:17:20] things and to put a definition around it

[2:17:24] it's situational it is contextual. Oh I appreciate

[2:17:30] that but if we're going to have the

[2:17:36] our penalties based on egregious and we haven't

[2:17:41] defined it, I think that's problematic. I totally

[2:17:44] agree with you. It's just funny the word

[2:17:46] just keeps coming up. Well, I guess the

[2:17:49] question is, you know, if someone's having a

[2:17:51] fourth violation and where you know can revoke

[2:17:54] their permit, and their only violation is that

[2:17:57] they charge $2.50 a whatever a cigar instead

[2:18:02] of $2.90. Are we going to feel good

[2:18:04] about that? Well, believe the language for that,

[2:18:08] for the egregious section, says May. May permanently

[2:18:18] revoke. So there's discretion there with the egregious

[2:18:22] piece. So if we're for violations of not

[2:18:25] having a sign or selling a single cigar,

[2:18:29] you may revoke it. You don't have to

[2:18:31] revoke it. Mhmm. That's the only place where

[2:18:35] it says May. And what about like the

[2:18:44] signs, signage? The signage drives me crazy. Because

[2:18:50] not only, you know, the DPH, when they

[2:18:54] draft, when DPH drafted the regulations that accompany

[2:18:58] this law, they added an additional $50 fine

[2:19:02] for not having the signs. So it's technically

[2:19:05] a thousand dollars and a thousand $50 if

[2:19:08] you don't have these signs, which we testified

[2:19:12] in opposition to that, but they left it

[2:19:14] in. When I say we, was at the

[2:19:17] time it was I testified in opposition to

[2:19:19] it and DJ did at the public council

[2:19:22] hearing, but they left it in. So, yeah.

[2:19:34] It seems silly to me. But again, inspectors

[2:19:38] do, and I'm sure Donna does it as

[2:19:39] well, if they don't have the signs, you

[2:19:41] go in and you bring them the sign.

[2:19:44] You don't fine them a thousand dollars and

[2:19:46] a thousand $50, you just bring them the

[2:19:48] sign and they put it Don't you think

[2:19:51] Donna it's more like when you go in

[2:19:53] and you find menthol and you find this

[2:19:56] and you find the no excise and then

[2:19:58] they don't have the signs then you. Right,

[2:20:00] then it almost seems blatant that they're just

[2:20:03] like you know, I'm with Charlotte, the sign

[2:20:06] thing can drive you crazy. You know, there's

[2:20:09] always a reason why they don't have them,

[2:20:10] either they took them down to paint or

[2:20:12] they fell down, they needed a new one,

[2:20:13] it wore out, it's behind something. It's, you

[2:20:15] know, lottery comes in and covers it. So,

[2:20:17] try to peel it, it's gone. So, I

[2:20:20] go through signage. I think the state wants

[2:20:22] to kill me for how much signage I

[2:20:24] go through, but I carry it with me

[2:20:26] every time I go out and I hand

[2:20:28] them out like it's candy. It's, one of

[2:20:32] those things. You just got to keep giving

[2:20:34] them to them. So you, so basically you

[2:20:36] wouldn't cite someone for just that. You just

[2:20:40] give them a sign. No, I would give

[2:20:41] them a sign. And we always put it

[2:20:43] in their notes, you know, when we're educating

[2:20:44] them, know, when we're putting it into post

[2:20:45] or putting it in our reports, we do

[2:20:47] say delivered signage, delivered signage. So, you can

[2:20:50] always go back and look and see that

[2:20:51] history is there. You know, if you were

[2:20:53] trying to come up with, you know, where

[2:20:56] do we go with this? If you're having

[2:20:57] a hearing, where do we go with this?

[2:20:58] You can look at the history and see,

[2:21:01] you know, and kind of use some of

[2:21:02] that to your advantage to say, okay, we've

[2:21:04] been in your store 18 times in the

[2:21:06] last three years, and we've given you signs

[2:21:09] 15 of those 18 times. What gives? So

[2:21:13] even though we don't have discretion, you know,

[2:21:16] our regs will say shall fine or shall

[2:21:19] whatever, you have a lot of discretion in

[2:21:22] what you present to us, right? What's education

[2:21:25] and what's what you cite. So that's where

[2:21:29] the discretion comes in. Right. And and municipalities

[2:21:32] are different. Some municipalities are to say, hey,

[2:21:34] we just want you to go in, give

[2:21:35] them that education. If you find things, let

[2:21:37] us know. But we're not out handing out

[2:21:39] tickets and and saying, you know, we got

[2:21:41] you again. We got got you again. We're

[2:21:43] educating, educating, giving them the tools they need.

[2:21:46] And then, you know, the municipalities take it

[2:21:48] from there. Oh, how do you keep it

[2:21:51] straight? Yeah. And do you have municipalities that

[2:21:56] will tell you that even when it comes

[2:21:58] to selling to underage? They don't want you

[2:22:02] to give they don't want you to fine?

[2:22:03] Yeah, we don't do it there. It's up

[2:22:06] to them. Actually make the decision on whether

[2:22:08] the fine is going to happen. And I

[2:22:15] have many towns there are a few towns

[2:22:17] out here in Western Mass that have hold

[2:22:19] permits. Just that's it. They've had more than

[2:22:25] two or three sales too underage. There's no

[2:22:30] questioning. It's in their regs and they pull

[2:22:33] it. They even discuss it. It's a third

[2:22:36] hit and it's done. It sends a pretty

[2:22:41] strong message to the other establishments in their

[2:22:44] towns. I mean, it does, you know, the

[2:22:47] news spreads like wildfire. They talk to each

[2:22:49] other. It's strict, but it's the way they

[2:22:56] chose to write their own. Right. That's the

[2:22:59] end of a business. And it so depends

[2:23:03] on the municipality, I guess, and how they

[2:23:05] feel about it because then other ones will

[2:23:07] say don't even find them. Does the finding,

[2:23:13] do you know this Cheryl, does the fine,

[2:23:15] the fee, does it go into the general

[2:23:17] fund of the municipal? It goes into the

[2:23:18] general fund unless you've set up a special

[2:23:21] fund, a revolving fund for tobacco. And I

[2:23:24] don't think you've done that in Northampton. Yes,

[2:23:27] I mean, you'd set up a special fund

[2:23:29] like maybe for education or would go back

[2:23:31] to the department. You would set up a

[2:23:32] fund that would help you, that would give

[2:23:36] you more resources to use in your time.

[2:23:40] But most of the if you don't have

[2:23:42] a special fund set up, it goes into

[2:23:44] the general fund for the All right. It

[2:23:51] sounds like we need more time to talk

[2:23:55] about fines and suspensions and tolling period. And

[2:24:02] I can start working on the draft and

[2:24:05] I can speak with Meredith and she can

[2:24:08] tell me why, well, and you guys can

[2:24:10] also tell me why she feels strongly that

[2:24:13] she doesn't want a tolling carrier. There's some

[2:24:15] reason, I'm sure. I can't say why. I

[2:24:23] just know that as a group in the

[2:24:25] past, we wanted to be generally strict and

[2:24:28] didn't want repeat offenders to just continue business

[2:24:31] as usual, pay a fine and keep doing

[2:24:33] it. But logistically keeping records, it sounds like

[2:24:39] we really wanna make sure that we do

[2:24:41] it right. We need more information about that.

[2:24:46] Any other comments? I think we could probably

[2:24:52] finish this discussion now and know that Cheryl

[2:24:56] and Meredith would make up a draft, then

[2:24:58] we'll just continue the discussion again. Yeah. We

[2:25:02] just have something to work from. Great. Donna,

[2:25:07] One thing. One of the other forms that,

[2:25:11] Meredith sent you, know she sent you many,

[2:25:13] so they're a bit confusing. She did send

[2:25:14] one that was highlighted in yellow and green

[2:25:17] that, we had done, comparing our regulations to

[2:25:20] the state regulations. And a lot of the

[2:25:22] highlighted yellow are the things that, really just

[2:25:25] changes the language of what's in our regulations

[2:25:29] right So, it's not necessarily adding anything, it's

[2:25:31] just changing the language. And that's really important

[2:25:33] to know because, really making it Yeah, because

[2:25:37] we've run into a lot of, you know,

[2:25:39] what really is a flavor and what really

[2:25:40] is an enhancer and what really is a

[2:25:42] blunt wrap? What really is manufacturer of letter?

[2:25:45] Right, right. So, just clarifies, you know, what

[2:25:49] that means. You know, we're constantly telling them

[2:25:52] what it is and explaining to them what

[2:25:53] it is. But, you know, when you go

[2:25:55] back and you read the regulation, it's really

[2:25:57] not clear. So it sounds like the state

[2:26:04] regs have helped clean up our language quite

[2:26:07] a bit. Yes. Good. Well, you, Cheryl and

[2:26:13] Donna. Thank you so much for your Thank

[2:26:15] you. Guidance. And it's complicated subject, for sure.

[2:26:20] Sure is. We will take it up again.

[2:26:24] Okay. Thank you. Thanks, folks. So much. You.

[2:26:27] Good to see you, Cheryl. Bye bye. All

[2:26:32] right, any closing thoughts about this topic? We'll

[2:26:37] discuss it again. We can take as much

[2:26:40] time as we want. To get it right

[2:26:44] before we have a public forum on it,

[2:26:48] and the only urgency is the fact that

[2:26:51] we now have state regs and our own

[2:26:54] local regs that are different. We have no

[2:26:56] tolling period. There's these two different sets of

[2:26:59] fines, and it's sort of complicated to manage

[2:27:03] for us if there's violation between now and

[2:27:06] when we finalize our regs. So, it'd be

[2:27:12] good to get it together soon. Any other

[2:27:16] thoughts about that? The only other question I

[2:27:20] have is that I noticed a gas station

[2:27:22] Speedway closed so they must have been selling

[2:27:25] tobacco. They weren't? No, I think it had

[2:27:29] more to do with their gas pumps required

[2:27:32] a lot of upgrading and the financial cost

[2:27:36] to that. Yeah. It wasn't why as much

[2:27:39] as if there was another license available. Is

[2:27:43] that the one on Route 10? King Street.

[2:27:51] What happens in the just like you said,

[2:27:53] Joanne, what happens in the interim while we're

[2:27:55] deciding this? Do we just defer to state

[2:27:56] regs at this point like we did today

[2:27:59] because the citation was under state regs if

[2:28:02] there is a violation? I think if there's

[2:28:06] a violation of state regs, we have to

[2:28:08] do what the state says. And if there's

[2:28:10] a violation of local regs, we use our

[2:28:12] current policy. Okay. I think so. It really

[2:28:16] depends what they're cited for. As long as

[2:28:19] it's stricter. As long as it's stricter, you

[2:28:24] said? As long as ours are stricter than

[2:28:26] the states, we can go with ours. Okay.

[2:28:29] We can't be more lenient than the state.

[2:28:32] Yeah. If ours are above and beyond, then

[2:28:34] we do that. But if they didn't violate

[2:28:37] a state reg, they don't have to have

[2:28:39] the state penalty. I think that's I think

[2:28:42] that's how I understand it. Yeah. All right

[2:28:47] so it's to be continued next time. Shall

[2:28:51] we do minutes? Did everyone have a chance

[2:28:53] to look at minutes? November minutes do want

[2:28:59] me to bring them up. Anybody have any

[2:29:03] comments about them let's see if I have

[2:29:05] a couple. Me see if I can find

[2:29:12] them I thought I had them here a

[2:29:14] second. Okay. One second. Where's my share screen?

[2:29:36] It's covering up my share screen. Okay. Suzanne?

[2:29:58] New business first paragraph. I think it would

[2:30:02] be very helpful if in the second line,

[2:30:05] if after COVID wastewater, if it said virus

[2:30:10] concentration. Rather than just wastewater. That is true

[2:30:19] also for the December minutes. Okay. Okay, and

[2:30:31] also in that paragraph, I think it would

[2:30:33] be very helpful if the sentence about flu,

[2:30:37] Elliot reported that seven cases of flu, if

[2:30:40] that came at the end, because the following

[2:30:44] two sentences are about COVID again. Yep. Okay.

[2:31:04] And then discussion of future board under new

[2:31:09] business third paragraph. There. The last sentence, Commissioner

[2:31:19] O'Leary. I didn't even notice that suggested having

[2:31:24] a consultant. And that's what I have. This

[2:31:30] is just a suggestion this doesn't have to

[2:31:32] be done. But as I was looking through

[2:31:34] the department updates, it seemed to me that

[2:31:37] it would be much easier to read if

[2:31:40] the department update dates were bulleted. Because this

[2:31:43] is a paragraph of a lot of unrelated

[2:31:46] topics. Not to change anything but it for

[2:31:50] the future. Okay. Okay. That's it. Okay. Anybody

[2:32:00] else. I'll do the bullets. Is it ready?

[2:32:11] Yep. Does anybody wanna make a motion? I

[2:32:18] make a motion to accept the minutes. Second.

[2:32:24] With edits? With the edits, yes. Any other

[2:32:30] discussion? And all in favor? Dallas? Yep. Suzanne?

[2:32:38] Yes. Janet? Yes. Cynthia? Yes. Joanne? Yes. Thank

[2:32:44] you. And December. Let's see if I can

[2:32:48] find December minutes. Okay. Anybody? Suzanne, do you

[2:33:32] have something else? Yeah, I have just a

[2:33:35] couple. Data updates three, roman numeral three the

[2:33:44] second there is was increased I think it

[2:33:50] should the is should probably go And then

[2:33:54] there should be an and there. No. And

[2:34:00] then also the next line is the wastewater

[2:34:04] virus concentration again. Yeah. Alright. Anything else? Spelling.

[2:34:32] I'm sorry. Old business. I'll fix the spelling

[2:34:37] of concentration. I'm sorry. Old business Roman numeral

[2:34:48] five. Doctor Levin, Cheryl Savaro unable to and

[2:34:57] that the state had just released new model

[2:35:01] regulations. That's it. Alright. Anybody else? If you

[2:35:10] go up to Jim's Variety, I think there's

[2:35:14] an apostrophe after Jim and Jim's. Another grammar

[2:35:20] snob, yay. And I can't recall, so I

[2:35:26] don't know, but I can't recall if counselor

[2:35:28] Mayori also talked about gender affirming care or

[2:35:30] if that was brought up by myself. But,

[2:35:37] yeah, I don't know if there's an edit

[2:35:39] there necessarily. I think that was brought up

[2:35:45] by you and she thought that that might

[2:35:47] be included in her work. Did she say

[2:35:49] that? I just know as a result of

[2:35:52] this, Elliot had created a separate webpage on

[2:35:56] the city's website for gender affirming care, but

[2:35:59] I cannot recall if that was included in

[2:36:01] this discussion. We did talk about putting information

[2:36:06] on the website. And that is up now,

[2:36:11] by the way. Right. Should I put that

[2:36:14] in here? The city information about reproductive health

[2:36:22] care and gender affirming care will be put

[2:36:24] on the city website. Or is on our

[2:36:31] website? It's on the city northamptonma.gov. Oh, it

[2:36:37] is? Okay. Great. The link to it for

[2:36:40] gender affirming care. And then on the sidebar,

[2:36:43] there's also abortion. That sound look right? Yep.

[2:37:03] Mhmm. Anything else? Okay. I might actually sorry.

[2:37:12] I might go back up and put information

[2:37:18] about abortion and reproductive healthcare or just reproductive

[2:37:22] healthcare and strike women's. Okay. Okay, anything else?

[2:37:35] Great. Anybody want to make a motion? I

[2:37:39] motion to approve the minutes as edited. Second.

[2:37:44] Any other discussion? All in favor, Dallas? Yes.

[2:37:55] Suzanne? Yes. Janet? Yes. Cynthia? Yes. Joanne? Yes.

[2:38:03] Thank you. I think oh, the last thing

[2:38:06] to we were gonna go over the calendar.

[2:38:13] So, Janet, you had some conflicts? I do.

[2:38:17] I it was travel that was planned before

[2:38:21] I had the meeting dates for both, unfortunately,

[2:38:25] both February and March. I'm not expecting you

[2:38:29] to change the meeting unless it's problematic for

[2:38:32] others as well. That's it for the year.

[2:38:41] I can't find that document. Meredith was going

[2:38:44] to send it out, but I don't think

[2:38:45] she sent it to me. Does anybody else

[2:38:49] have it? No, but I have a conflict

[2:38:51] in July. So I guess that brings up

[2:38:55] the question which has come up before if

[2:38:57] someone has a conflict do we try to

[2:39:00] move the date, or if only one person

[2:39:03] has a conflict we keep the date. We

[2:39:06] certainly want to have a quorum and it's

[2:39:08] certainly helpful for a lot of us and

[2:39:13] Meredith's office and and to have some regularity

[2:39:16] and predictability and for the public as well.

[2:39:22] How would you like to handle that? I

[2:39:28] I don't think you should move it for

[2:39:29] one person because you'll still have a quorum.

[2:39:33] Mhmm. It becomes very complicated to find another

[2:39:38] date that we all can agree upon. It

[2:39:47] makes we we have a full board now.

[2:39:49] Right? Yes. It makes sense now that we

[2:39:52] have a full board and a schedule for

[2:39:55] the year that we would all be able

[2:39:58] to plan out for the entire year. Mhmm.

[2:40:01] Right. Right. Yep. I would agree not to

[2:40:06] change it. So if someone can't come, they

[2:40:14] should let me know because then if I

[2:40:15] hear from two people then then maybe we

[2:40:18] would consider changing it. A quorum is three,

[2:40:21] right? So we need at least three. I

[2:40:24] guess we could go forward with three, although

[2:40:25] we wouldn't necessarily feel good about voting when

[2:40:29] almost half of us are gone, but, it's

[2:40:34] it would be legal. So I think if

[2:40:40] one person's out, we'll keep it the same.

[2:40:42] If two people are out, we could put

[2:40:44] out a notice and see if there's an

[2:40:46] easy fix. And if there isn't, then we'd

[2:40:50] leave it. And if three people are out,

[2:40:51] we can't really have the meeting. All right.

[2:40:57] So our next scheduled meeting is February 16.

[2:41:03] So right now, everyone can come except for

[2:41:05] Janet. And we'll talk a lot more about

[2:41:09] tobacco. Okay. Anything else? Thank you for all

[2:41:20] your work tonight. It was a lot. Thank

[2:41:22] you. Thank you. Thank all. Alright. We'll see

[2:41:27] you next time. Alright. Feel better. Do we

[2:41:29] have to move to adjourn? Oh, yeah. Move

[2:41:32] to adjourn. Second. Let's race to be to

[2:41:38] second that. Any discussion? All in favor? Dallas?

[2:41:43] Aye. Yes. Suzanne? Yes. Janet? Yes. Cynthia? Yes.

[2:41:50] Joanne, yes. We do it verbally because the

[2:41:53] recording has to hear it, So can't can't

[2:41:56] record our waves. Okay. Thank you, Amy. Alright.

[2:42:00] Thank you. You guys have a good night.

[2:42:02] Bye, everyone.

BOH_011923

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