The Fall River Board of Health held a virtual meeting on Thursday, May 19th, 2022. The board approved the minutes from their April 21st meeting with a minor correction regarding SRTA transportation. They also unanimously approved two requests from Richard A. Santos for a body piercing establishment and a piercing practitioner license at Flaming Balls Tattoo, 1120 Stafford Road, after reviewing his credentials and facility. A significant portion of the meeting was dedicated to a public hearing for AMS Food Mart, located at 2307 South Main Street, regarding a second offense for violating tobacco control regulations. The store was found selling flavored tobacco products, incurring a mandatory $2,000 fine. This followed a previous $1,000 fine in December for selling a flavored vape to an underage buyer. Sohail, representing his father Muhammad, the owner, apologized and stated the flavored products were sold to help the struggling business. The board, after discussion, unanimously voted to impose a seven-day suspension of the store's tobacco permit, running from Friday, May 20th, through Thursday, May 26th. Additionally, the board discussed proposed amendments to regulations prohibiting smoking in workplaces and public places, and restricting the sale of tobacco products. These amendments aim to update definitions to include electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDS) and incorporate new state laws regarding fines and the three-year tolling period for violations. Due to the recent receipt of the documents, the board agreed to table both proposed votes until the next month's meeting to allow for thorough review and public consideration. The Director's Report highlighted ongoing efforts to promote COVID-19 vaccinations via frvax.com, noted an increase in cases and hospitalizations, and encouraged mask-wearing and testing. A citizen, Patrick Higgins, submitted a concern regarding the lack of insulated bags and food safety training for gig economy food delivery drivers. The next meeting was scheduled for June 16th, with a tentative July 14th meeting before the virtual meeting cutoff.
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the board of health virtual meeting on thursday may 19th scheduled for 4 pm my name is thomas corey present with me via zoom is michael coughlin dr stephen gagliardi and tess curran our agent of the board all are participating remotely 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
0:31that such recordings or transmissions are being made whether perceived or unperceived by those present and are deemed acknowledged and permissible tess can we have a roll call thomas corey president michael coughlin president stephen gagliardi first item on the agenda minutes of the board of health meeting held on uh april 21st 2022 are there any additions deletions or corrections to be
1:07made to the minutes of the meeting is printed i have one simply if we go to the next to the last paragraph um after it says 410 uh dr gagliotti joined us it reads we need to get the message out as well about where people need to continue wearing masks there is a lot of confusion now with transit ceratos i think that's supposed to be srta transportation just to clarify i assume that's the the local buses
1:54all right yeah i i i can't remember the specifics to the end of the uh it had to do with the the buses certain buses okay that's the only thing i have anything else no do we have a motion to accept move to accept as amended second second all in favor oh test roll call thomas corey yes michael coughlin yes stephen dagner yes okay next we have the request for approval of a body piercing establishment for
2:34richard a santos at flaming balls tattoo 1120 stafford road fall river lisa there you are yeah you're reporting on this one yes i am um red people say um a body practitioner as you well know um decided to go and take a course from um prime primary primal instincts and the certificate is um in the packet yes i'm going through every everything appears to be here yes it is um all his credentials are in order um
3:14and today he brought in a spore it's for his autoplay he just wanted to prove to me that he had it tested and it was okay and it passed um and that was just brought in today so you may not have a copy of that okay but you have it there but i have it here yes okay um you know when he's using the same room that he uses for his uh tattoo practitioner
3:38uh his license so everything's in order his uh establishment is is good um and he's good to go for okay anyone have any questions comments nope do we have a motion to grant the approval of a body piercing establishment emotion to approve second tess can we have a roll call i'm sorry yes michael coughlin yes stephen douglas yes okay next in conjunction with we have the request for approval
4:30for a piercing practitioner license for mr santos and once again lisa the packet looks pretty complete is everything everything's here the primal instinct um certificate is is completed you know all his uh bloodborne pathogens cpr first aid skin course everything's here okay gentlemen any questions comments do we have a motion to approve the piercing practitioner license for richard a santos so moves
5:15do we have a second sorry second test can we have a roll call miss corey yes michael coughlin yes stephen gagliardi yes mr santos good luck thank you i appreciate it thanks for your time thank you okay next we're opening a hearing on a second offense of the act to modernize tobacco control at ams food mart 2307 south main street and diane you're presenting i am if you will good how are you hello
5:59uh so let's see so ams was issued a cease and desist order in the amount of two thousand dollars this past monday may 16th for violating enact to modernize tobacco control as you mentioned and 105 cmr 665 whereas during the inspection it was discovered that they were offering for sale a large quantity of flavored tobacco products as this is their second offense since december of last year when
6:23they faced a fine of one thousand dollars for selling a flavored vape to an underage buyer they face a mandatory suspension of their tobacco permit for at least one day and up to seven days which is required by the state law so there is someone here to represent ams the actually the owner of the business is out of the country so his son is here who is the acting manager of the store
6:51um and he was here of the day of our inspection hi uh i'm sohail uh i'm representing my ams food mart on behalf of my father muhammad also okay what uh what do you have to say sir um i would just like to apologize on we've made a big mistake on uh selling these flared products um just all i would probably just want to stay is uh we apologize for this and uh we were just
7:28doing it to have a little extra money to help the business a little bit because our business for the past over a year has like struggled very much because of the flavor ban and uh yeah that's all i would like to say so you've stocked these items right along in violation of the ban no uh we just started this like around probably four or five months ago diane how long has the band been in
8:02place i'm sure it's well over a year it's been about close to two years now close to two years yeah wasn't there a violation in december of last year there was for sale of flavored vape so that was about four or five months ago and you paid the thousand dollar fine we did yes and you continue to do it um we will we have stopped um i don't carry any flavor vaping anymore um and i've
8:41stopped this forever now i i'm just looking for a chance this time please guys um if you guys could
8:56the fine stands the question is how long will the suspension be the final time the define is mandatory so there's nothing we can do about the fine the on on the suspension it's an automatic it's going to be at least one day um and because you've had you know this is the second violation not even six months uh you or your father as the owner was aware that this was
9:25not the right thing to do it was in violation um i would be in favor of the full seven days myself gentlemen uh comments questions yeah i mean yeah and the first the first offense was to an underage minor correct it was and so not only are you selling products that aren't supposed to be sold you're selling them to kids well over my last uh variation uh i had stopped to the
10:07miners it was just basically i'm gonna be honest with basically adults who are trying to quit uh cigarettes and they were looking for an alternative there are many alternative products to help quit smoking but continued smoking is not one of them i mean obviously since you you got caught before you knew that there was a risk of getting caught you know what the uh potential problems were so you took the chance to
10:40make more money and now you're gonna have to pay uh double the fine um so it doesn't seem like it was worth it so i go for the seven days too so do we have a motion on the seven day give dr gagliotti 30 seconds anything else you want to say in you know that create extenuating circumstances mr uh no this is that's all it was it's unfortunate
11:30tom do you want to proceed with this uh uh dr gary's already if you'll make the motion yeah so i i move that we assess the mandatory fine in a seven day suspension of the tobacco okay a second okay tess can we have a roll call just a quick at what point would that go into effect well that's what i was going to ask diane when would she be as soon
11:55as we have the that it will be seven days we'll discuss that further okay so uh thomas corey yes michael coughlin yes stephen gagliardi yes diane how much prep time do you need to um arrange for the removal and that and all those other items um well i did open my schedule up for tomorrow just in case we needed to act on this immediately so i definitely can go in and oversee this tomorrow if need be
12:26um to get this in motion um i think what they need to do is box everything up and move it to they have a back room storage area where everything can be kept um it can be sealed up and i can make sure that everything has been put you know off-site um until the center suspension is lifted okay so we're going from from friday the 20th through thursday the 26th we're all in an agreement yes
12:58okay so what's the penalty for the third violation that's a five thousand dollar fine and it's a minimum of seven days and up to 30 days suspension and there's also a potential to replicate uh to revoke the license that wouldn't be necessary um we have stopped forever all right okay all right i hope so then diane if you're all set for tomorrow let's go with tomorrow the suspension will run
13:27from friday the 20th through thursday the 26th you'll be back open for memorial day weekend okay next item we have a couple of proposed votes to amend the regulations of prohibiting smoking in workplaces and public places and it's where updating definitions copies of the proposed regulation are available from the department of health and human services i just got these on tuesday night as i
14:00assume we all did and i've read through them once i would like to have the opportunity to read through them again and i'd like to give the public the opportunity that we're going to be doing this so i would like to move this to next month for a vote that gives us all of the uh about 30 days to to read it through and make sure we're all in agreement
14:22i i'm certainly fine with that but i i wonder if tess or diane could give us a summary of what's what's in there what are the highlights do you want me to take this okay i can i can jump in as needed okay so we're going to be trying to just amend two documents um the first is prohibiting smoking in workplaces and public places um and basically what we just need to do is update the definitions
14:55the original document is from i believe 2007.
15:00so a lot has happened since then especially with the inclusion of electronic nicotine delivery systems um and then the proposed amendment to the regulation of restricting the sale of tobacco products that will be similar with updating definitions again with we call them ends products and also we're going to incorporate the new state laws as we sort of talked about a little bit today
15:24regarding violations so um the proposed amendment number nine um actually talks about the state law change of fines and the tolling period um because that's where we're seeing the most changes um it's three years now instead of two years um with the state violations which is you know sail to a minor sale of flavored tobacco products and such um and then the fines have changed so
15:53that we just want to include that now in the document as well okay is that agreeable to everyone to uh to have an opportunity to study it and we'll discuss it more next month sounds good sure and that would that would be the same situation with number nine the proposed vote to amend the regulations restricting the sale of tobacco products um again updating the things so both of those items will move to next month's
16:21agenda okay okay okay now tess we have the director's report so i i just wanted um to again discuss briefly copied so we're still trying to promote the frvax.com um website for vaccinations we have seen a slight increase in some first doses being administered uh just even over the last week um so we're hopeful that that will continue um as it stands right now um about 47.5 percent of the eligible population is
17:03boosted so that number really is while we're seeing you know folks come into the clinic that number is not significantly going up um each week um but we're still trying to encourage folks to um to get you know stay up to date with their vaccinations um we are seeing an increase in cases um and anecdotally in conversations with the hospitals you know they're seeing uh an uptick in hospitalizations
17:30as well which you know certainly isn't um surprising um with the increasing cases but we are hoping folks still take advantage of the the free test kits that are at the library um we're pushing out that the federal government has just um allowed for an additional request for um tests to be mailed to the home um so that's being shared publicly um and just still encouraging folks to wear their masks when indoors if
18:00possible stay home get tested and then remain up to date with your vaccination i was at the library last week and they were they said they were out of the test kids okay i just got an email from leanne today saying she was running low um and was gonna have have some more brought over um but that they should have had some so i'll double check with her there um but
18:25but we have we still have some and i do that you know we've received and some grant funding um that's going to be running out at the end of the fiscal year will allow us to purchase additional test kits so um we'll be planning on doing that so we'll have an adequate supply just as a note medicare is paying for up to eight tenths a month through the part b and i've had many patients come in
18:51our supplies are getting spotty though right now on the tests okay tess is there anything for citizens input yes we do have citizens input let me just pull that up i'm sorry hold on one moment um this is um citizens input from patrick higgins um 1197 robeson street um mr higgins emailed indicating that he's very concerned that the health department continues to allow the gig economy
19:27drivers ubereats doordash grubhub etc to deliver food in the city of fall river and transport the food without using an insulated bag to deliver the food hot i'm also concerned that the board of health does not require these delivery drivers to take and pass a food safety course the health and safety of the food being delivered should be paramount to the members of the fall river board of
19:50health the current membership and health directors seem to be more concerned about chickens and tattoo parlors thanks mr higgins thank you gentlemen confirm the date for the next meeting following our usual patent it would be june 23rd thursday the 23rd and tom just one quick thing um the if we if we plan to have a meeting in july on july 15th is the cut off as it stands right now for
20:22virtual meetings so if we were to hope to have a june meeting and a july meeting um we may want to kind of try for a mid-june and then have a meeting that um right before the july cut off if that's something that that that would be fine my account june 16th which would be the thursday before if we use the 16th then we could get it in on july 14th that sounds good that sounds good
20:54if everyone's clear so it'd be june 16th and even planning further ahead for july 14th my father's birthday july 14th okay tess was there any other um items of such a nature that they couldn't make the agenda no okay we have a motion to adjourn it's all moved second do we have a roll call thomas corey yes michael coughlin yes steven gagliardi yes thank you all for your attendance this
21:35afternoon enjoy the beautiful weather remember the sunscreen when you go out this week all right see you later
22:14you