5 18 2023 Board of Health

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good afternoon to everyone and welcome to the Board of Health virtual meeting on Thursday May 13th scheduled for 3 30.

my name is Thomas Corey present with me via Zoom is Michael Coughlin and Tess Curran our agent of the board Dr gagliati is now with us at this moment various guests and participants in today's meeting pursuant to the open meeting law any person may make an audio or video recording of this public meeting or may transmit the meeting through any medium attendees are therefore advised that

such recordings or Transmissions are being made whether perceived or unperceived by those present and are deemed acknowledged and permissible we have a roll call Corey yes the first time this is the approval of minutes of meeting of Thursday April 20th 2023 um are there any additions deletions or corrections to be made to the minutes of the meeting is printed Sandy I want to give you an Applause

that's a lot of technical stuff you've got those minutes that's really a good job and thank you for being so diligent with that I'm I move we accept the minutes we have a motion to move our second roll call Thomas Corey yes Michael Coughlin yes okay next we have um wait a minute look at the wrong tape okay we have a request for the keeping of chickens by Tanya Marin 334 Tucker

Street Fall River Lisa you are usually the presenter I am yeah I don't see her name up there but different name I guess yes um Tanya lives down at 334 Tuttle Street she's requesting uh to have eight chickens on her property it was very clean um she did have the yard exterminated and there were no issues um from the company okay I I see I see on the application it sets the number of chickens at eight

okay and and that's okay but we have to remind you Easter has just passed but if we show up the week before Easter next year we don't want to have 20 uh check what's running around okay so we got to keep the number at eight absolutely no roosters okay no roosters and the other thing we see that there was a rodent inspection but there's usually supposed to be an annual contract for continuous Road

inspections okay so it's annual um this looks like a one-time only first this was a one time because I told her she had to have a yacht exterminated but I didn't tell her that she had to have it yearly I don't believe maybe I did um but I mean a yacht is clean this there was no um sign okay that's always been a condition of our granting of the variants before right so I would be

inclined if we get proof of an annual contract that uh I'm sure that we we could move on that yeah so so you want to you want a motion to approve pending the confirmation of the annual contract yes I think that'd be the best way to go okay so moved all right I'll second roll call Thomas Corey yes Michael Coughlin yes okay congratulations good luck with the chickens thank you okay now we have

we're swearing in of Robert De Soto as the health no we're not swearing you in we are appointing you okay Robert De Soto was the health agent

Robert has been in his role for uh sometime now um but um Bob Cloutier who's his counterpart within um the food inspector um division um has been appointed as an agent so um the request internally was that um Bobby uh also be appointed as an agent um so that he can carry out the duties um as needed okay I mean I'm ready to move to approve okay I'll second

do we have a roll call Thomas Corey yes Michael Coughlin yes okay congratulations Bobby thank you and good luck in your new role appreciate it thank you so much okay next we have tobacco violations hearing it's the second to modernize Tobacco Control East Coast Wholesale fighting Italian Street Fall River Mass we have Robert Patel representing East Coast and who's presenting on

Jennifer I'll be presenting okay Tess is presenting so what are the details um so this the this is the second offense as indicated um the first violation was um in February of 2023 When Miss Heath Diane Heath was still with us as the Tobacco Control coordinator um at that time um there were flavor tobacco products being offered at the establishment um I went back a second time um on April 25th

um and there will continue to be um flavor tobacco products being sold at The Establishment which is by the second relations come before the board um and due to the state regulations and the state laws um that is automatically triggers them coming before the board um for a possible uh suspension or suspension of minimum of seven days and it's in the uh two thousand dollar fine in addition to the one thousand

dollar fine for the first violation okay Mr Patel what do you have to say okay I'm the owner of East Coast fulfill I was out of town going forward I operated business down in Florida as well and uh in the system pandemic keeping good employees is very very hard and we've had several employees come in and out of the store and some have taken upon themselves to you know meet customers requests for mental tobacco

wait a minute wait a minute how can they meet a customer's request and something it's not supposed to be sold you shouldn't even have it in the building so how could they meet the customer's request hey somebody I do not know who had acquired an adult tobacco from another state or another store don't know where and we'll go open it for sale in my experience so you're not running the operation someone else is

correct that was not present no I didn't ask that who was that you're the you're representing you're the owner what is your status here I am the owner okay you're the owner oh boy this doesn't look good if that's an owner so you as the owner were unaware that someone brought in a menthol or a flavored tobacco product and it was being sold how long were you in Florida from November 1st

six months so you yeah this is getting this is getting worse um so what's the word I want to use untrustworthy employees you could say that okay unfortunately when you have untrustworthy employees the owners responsible

by getting rid of them and at the same time that tennis had been to my store she also came with an investigator from the state uh where the state had charged me a thousand dollars as well uh that fine has been paid to the state and I feel it's double jeopardy if the state in the city is both going to give me a fine if I could if I could quickly jump in here

um the Department of Revenue was in attendance on both the February um visit with Diane Heath and the April visit with myself it is a separate uh charge if you will the Department of Revenue issue was the untacked cigarettes so those are coming in from out of state that's what that issue is that's separate from the issue that the city of Fall River has fined for in terms of the flavored tobacco so there's

two separate concerns the city doesn't have any uh jurisdiction or or um insight into the you know untaxed cigarettes so that's not something that this violation that we're talking about here um you know incorporates any any piece of that this is regarding the flavored product oh mayako any thoughts no I mean I think it's clear-cut they were two separate violations and and he's been cited by the the authorities

overseeing each of the violations and president is for a suspension on the second offense so I I don't know that we have a lot of leeway here okay um seven days that's the standard that's the standard Michael would you be agreeable to a seven day

did you hear me no I did not I'm sorry um can you hear me now yeah we can hear you now yeah okay I don't know what happened uh I I said several long sentences that apparently didn't get through but all I was saying was I don't know of any uh we have a precedent then we should stick to it mm-hmm but I also asked you if if you had another thought uh if you wanted to

proceed in a different direction I'm ready to go ahead with with the standard suspension and fine but I don't know if you know that that would be that would be my idea okay good no just simply as a as a owner of a business I'm a small business owner and you think tobacco has regulations you ought to see my business about regulations and you know sometimes you have um employees well you make sure

they're very well trained or you don't have them um and you said you were out of the state for six months and these these people who are supposed to be trustworthy brought in stuff that shouldn't have been there and then there was an issue with the taxes um it it kind of uh it kind of I'd rather not say that on on in the public but I would be agreeable to the seven day suspension

to find additional is what I heard test say well the finest automatic oh is that correct yeah the fine is automatic okay the fine has been um it's already been issue okay all right well then I I moved to uh issue a seven day suspension to the business uh on their tobacco license okay I'll second we have a roll call Thomas Corey yes Michael Coughlin yes and when would we uh we we have we haven't uh

we haven't been introduced to Jennifer yet but Jennifer um you'd be coordinating the removal of the tobacco products what does your schedule look like can we coordinate that uh the dates uh yep so I did speak with Tess and uh we have coordinated a date okay so you're all set with that you'll inform Mr Patel yes we'll likely be by Monday mid-morning okay unfortunately I'm out of the office tomorrow or otherwise

um we would do it tomorrow but it will have to wait until Monday because I wanna um go with with Jennifer um other you know she's just starting this week okay all right I'm sorry Mr Patel but they'll be in to visit you on Monday this will close to here this will close the hearing on the tobacco violation

now at this time it is a it's three thousand dollars because you still haven't paid the first thousand dollar fine um and now we've tacked on the two thousand dollar fine um if you'd like to discuss that then we can have a conversation um with Corporation Council um next week um because we have um you know delivered paperwork that that's been declined through um certified mail so we dropped that off via Constable uh

on May 11th so you were you were served a number of documents on the 11th I believe I'm sorry sir I'm having a little hard time hearing you

um all right so we're gonna discuss this further the monetary fine the fines remain but we can if you'd like to have a conversation regarding those funds then we can do that with Corporation counsel so the legal office here in Government Center well do I make an appointment for that are you going to make appointments will you be president on Monday at the at the store no I'll be on my way back to Florida so

then why don't um why don't you um you should have my email um in that pocket um and you can email me dates and times that may work for you next week and we can try and find a time just to have a conversation but the fines you know that the total will not change um but we can try and see if there's an opportunity um for for some type of um plan figure won't change

okay all right so the suspension will come out on Monday correct okay and you'll remove the charcoal parts that I have and you'll return the tobacco products We Will We Will box the tobacco products that you have and then they won't be able to be sold for the week and then we'll come back and we will we will you know bring the tobacco products back out okay so you're picking up all right um uh um

in agreement with this um but you know I mean it's uh I hope it doesn't happen again oh we do too Mr Patel that's your responsibility that doesn't happen again okay thank you next item on the agenda is the introduction of Jennifer dotec Sarah as our new Tobacco Control coordinator Jennifer welcome thank you all right tell us your life story in 30 seconds um a quick thing is I'm excited to be

here and I look forward to serving the community all right very good did you want to add anything to that test well we're really I'm really happy Jennifer's um Jennifer's here she's been doing her orientations and trainings this week um and is you know really just getting geared up um to hit the road um and so I think she'll be a great addition to the team and we're really happy she's joined they're very good

Again Jennifer welcome we wish you the best okay the director's report uh you know I don't have uh too much um other than we are just um moving forward again with with some of the same grants I'm looking forward to having the epidemiologist starting about uh three weeks she started what's going on on the fifth of June so I think that's going to be really important for the Department um and we'll be able to

um you know look at things and evaluate things in a way that we haven't um before just because we really haven't had that skill set within the department so um looking forward to that um we did uh potentially receive uh additional funding through the shared services Grant um for the next fiscal year um so we're developing a budget along with Seekonk and Swansea for an increase in funding

um and I think that's only gonna you know help help us whether it be additional support staff um or Staffing and or new software and Technology um for the inspectors to use not only here Bob remember the other community so um so really I'm hopeful about that opportunity and our you know um thankful that that we're a part of that Grant okay was there anything under citizens input we did not receive citizens input

okay next item confirm the date for the next meeting uh following our usual patent it would be June 22nd or June 29th I thought that June 29th might be too close to the 4th of July weekend it's not for me but for others um do you want to run that by and see if Michael's out of either of those all right with you yeah that'll be fine either one all right we if we can check

with Dr Gagliardi sure so check with him for the 22nd of the 29th yes okay is there a preference or no preference at all yeah I I have no preference okay all right cool we'll check in and circle back um Sandy will be with um a calendar invite for the confirmary okay very good can we have a motion to adjourn well is there any other business to come before before the Board of

Health was of such a nature that it could not make the agenda no no business very good can I have a motion to adjourn move to adjourn I second can we have a roll call Thomas Corey yes Michael Coughlin yes all right thank you all for spending the afternoon with us have a lovely weekend okay thank you