5.28.2024 Board of Health

good afternoon to everyone in the land of zoom and welcome to the Board of Health virtual meeting on Tuesday May 28 scheduled for 3:30 my name is Thomas Cory present with me via Zoom is Michael Coughlin and tus tus Currin our agent of the board 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 and 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 yes can we have a roll call Thomas Corey yes Michael cofin here the next item of business is the approval of the minutes from from the Board of Health meeting on THS on yeah Thursday April 30th

2024 are there any additions dels or corrections to be made to the minutes of the meeting is printed to approve the minutes I'll second can we have a roll call Thomas Corey yes Michael Coughlin yes okay next we have a request for variance of keeping of chickens by Michael St Pierre Jr 377 quinsey Street for River 02720 and I believe F you're presenting I am yes so this is

um well I don't think I don't know if it counts but this is the nicest chicken cpop I've ever seen um it's it's it's a work of architecture uh multi levels and uh I can tell you that I they these are active chickens and I when I I couldn't quite get up to 15 when I counted but there were no more than that um the um the yard is in pristine condition is a very nice yard

um they've they've had these chickens for a while didn't realize that they needed a permit and uh I did get it just the last minute and I actually got it a couple of hours ago but didn't see it I did get one email in support of the keeping of of chickens there but I I just saw it as I was checking my email now uh but you have the only other correspondents on that already right

and as far as the uh keeping them in the property I think the St PS can speak to that I did address that with them we have a couple of row chickens that seem to get out from time to time but um since you have that comment perhaps we uh allow them to comment on what they're doing about that okay Mr St Pierre so the chickens are getting out

on the side of the house hi how are you oh first of all Mr can you state your name and your address for the record hi I'm Mike St Pierre and uh I live at 377 Quincy Street Fall River now Mr St Pierre i' feel a lot better if you weren't driving while we were having this conversation do you want me to speak to it Mike sure okay you can drive um we

currently have all of the materials needed to gate off a side of the yard that currently only has chicken um chicken fencing up um believe that's how the chickens are getting out and over there's a small hole in the front of it um but we currently do have all the materials required to build the fence along the side of the house that doesn't have a permanent fence um and that the

plan is to do that within the next week or two all right so that's a chicken wire fence is that on that you mean on the south side of the property yep it would be on the south side yeah all right and so you're going to make that a taller fence it'll be a six foot fence I I believe the material six it'll be a six foot fence all the way around um to the

front and the front will remain the four foot fence that we have in the front so I mean it's it's um it's about a half an acre property it's very nice property the the coupe I've been there twice inside the yard and the one when I was looking for the Escape Route uh once I saw that letter um and um it it it's um I would say close to a model property

except for that one little problem with the chickens uh getting out it's a very large property it's spotless the coupe was extremely clean so it's almost as if you knew I was coming uh which you didn't the St pan did not know it was coming when I came but the the coupe was spotless and uh I couldn't even smell chicken that's gentlemen any questions now did you guys go over the the RO um

pest control thing before I get on they they've already submitted a copy of the pest control contract um we always insist on that and you understand no roosters and and your application says for 15 chickens so that's the limit of 15 chickens um the week before rester you cannot raise 36 chicks you know for an Easter party um that's not allowed under the rules is that uh so we understand all

that yep okay um anything else gentlemen no sounds good okay can we have a motion to uh to Grant the variance motion to approve second can we have a roll call Thomas Corey yes Michael Coughlin yes Steven gley yes okay thank you and good luck and Mr St Pierre you drive home safely thank you gentlemen have a good one okay all next we have the request for keeping of chickens Antonio Souza 988 Stafford Road

is there anyone here for is there anyone here for the Antonio soua 98 8 Stafford Road no so I I must have misunderstood you uh um I I told him given the circumstances upon my inspection today this was not going to be acceptable so I think he was planning not to attend my mistake okay no that uh that's fine we weren't sure whether they would or they wouldn't okay okay

um so I guess with with with tabling or withdrawing what did they say what wanted to do well so I I told him what he had to do um there there were um he told me that the um 20 or so additional chickens were guests um and I told him that I would like to know that for fact like to see them gone um and but he he is going to

try again I also the the property had maybe slid back a little bit uh in the question of the bows so I told him what he needed to do so at just said first blush the the additional chickens just was not going to that's more than he applied for if they are indeed guest then he can take care of that forth with so I suggested that we'd probably be able to revisit this at the next meeting

so I would a table be appropriate in that case he has some work to do yeah okay but before we do that I I just want for the record um on this particular case we did get three letters um about about the situation and the only thing is I I am very hesitant to enter them into the record because one of them is neither signed or an address one of them only has an address

no signature um and the third one meets the those requirements so anyone out there in uh in Zoom L if you're going to if you're in a butter and you get a notice whether you're for or against um it's really important that you sign and give us your address so I have a question about that yes because the applicant um want wanted to see the letters and I said well I don't know if that's public

record at this point it is not public record at this point because we haven't acted on right okay if he was here at the meeting we would discuss them in public but until that uh that happens then it's not public okay you can make public record request but if it's not public record then can't get it all right so he can he can address that uh hopefully next month they'll be ready

okay so can we have a motion to table motion second can we have a roll call Thomas Corey yes Michael coflin Yes Stephen gardi yes okay the next item or the last item on the agenda is the uh a tobacco violations hearing second off of an act to modernize Tobacco Control by the atlas smoke shop 440 Stafford Road Fall River 02721 Jennifer's here with us and Jennifer will present on this Jennifer give us the facts here

okay um so on Wednesday April 24th around 3:19 p.m. I completed my inspection at Atlas smoke shop during my inspection I found flavored tobacco products which included coffee flavored Zin and Menthol Eagle cigarettes uh since it was a violation of the state law and it was their second violation within 36 months the fee is $2,000 with a possible 7day suspension as of right now uh Atlas did pay their

fee uh so the only thing in question is their suspension and just to keep in mind their first offense was back on June 27 2021 uh for a sale to a minor okay Mr Patel are you here for the yeah yes uh I'm here I'm the manager of the smoke shop my name is Assad ofal and U yes I understand that those products should not have been there um

those were old items um and I agree that uh that they shouldn't be there that's why we paid the fine we're hesitant on like the 7day suspension that Jennifer is saying it's been 34 months back in that time it was covid time people were wearing masks um that violation happened then and ever since we've been good never had any problem but these products been sitting there for a while um we should have removed it as my

understanding that it shouldn't be there rest is on you guys well you didn't agree to pay the fine you didn't have a choice it's the law so you had to pay the fine so it's it's not like you're um participating in this willingly um the violation is there and then the law says you had to pay the fine so this isn't like a Cooperative Adventure um I don't know why the products are

there I'm sure they've been legal for a long time in fact you know that that's not really a great

excuse so we have the question of of the suspension 34 months the seven days how many how many products were there Jennifer that's for you um so there was a few coffee flavored Zin pouches and I mean when you say when you say there was a few were there three was there a half a dozen was there a dozen I spotted about like eight of them in the store and uh for

the menthol cigarettes I spotted about six of them in the store and Jennifer can you speak to when the flavor band went in effect um so we've had the flavor band for a while um sorry I'm like spacing out right now H so it's it's been in fact for a while the flavor band it's been years yeah four years yes that's leg has there been an inspection of this has this place been inspected in

the interim the four years in today do you know what I mean you understand my question Jennifer yeah so past inspections I did do my last educational visit last year in July 2023 and there was no violations in that during that visit and prior to that it was um looks like it was in May of 2022 okay and there was no flavor tobacco then either obviously say so that would suggest that the the

products have been placed there more recently uh and it would also they must have you must have known when they were put back in that you weren't supposed to have them there uh so we took over the store in 200 after the ban you could see the new U application we took over the store in 200 I believe 21 and the band was already in effect and these products were sitting there

for a bit um she found them uh in the back office area and one underneath uh the counter shelves and we never really we haven't really fully cleaned the store were these available for the public no they weren't uh displayed or anything like that so so that's Jennifer that's correct that you didn't find anything that was out on display that could have been purchased by the public uh so one of the items that I did

find if when I pull up the picture I did find one of them in the front um The Eagles I did find in the back area but I also did find like a little uh flavored Menthol Vape fluid and that was in the front and that's what led me to go check the back

area when you mean the front that means right at the register or it was like in the register area like where the Vape stuff was is where I found one of the products it look like it was three years old uh the Zen pouches I'm not really sure it's like in a plastic container with uh but I think zin's more like a newer uh newer product that I'm starting to see in a lot of stores

so I'm not sure if it's an old product but it is uh a newer product I am starting to finding a lot of stores it's gone famous over the years Rec recently with kids getting it in schools and stuff because nobody like it's easy to hide and stuff but it's been out for a while you can uh check

it but I do agree that we are at fault we are wrong for having it we should have checked it fully cleaned out the store before we started our license well especially since there was a a violation you know people are going to be looking at it a little and then the the the penalties escalate so probably The Prudent thing would have been to make sure there were no other violations in the

store and you said you took over the store in 2021 correct the store hasn't had a good cleaning since 2021 it's it's a lot of product like you know oh sir I run a drugstore I know about lots of products and lots of different categories of

products so is the um suspension mandatory or is it up to on a second offense uh that would be up to the board no I think only a third offense is a mandatory recall that we set one aside re I gu the end mean I would be more likely to go for a suspension if it was you know same fence second you know sell into a minor um I mean I'm okay with with set with

with waving the suspension this time with the understanding that if you're back here again it's going to be a full one month suspension right I'll agree with that okay do we have a motion to that so moved second second and we'll put it in the right uh motion can we have a roll call Thomas Corey so if we're voting yes we're voting for no suspension right okay so yes Michael Coughlin yes Stephen Gard

yes okay Mr Patel um you're a lucky man today should we meet should we meet again in this forum though we uh we'll probably be a lot Sterner thank you okay next item is the director's report Tess what exciting news do you have for us um well since our last meeting the um opioid settlement survey has closed and we held the public meeting um so a report will be forthcoming that will um

have that will evaluate all of that information that we had collected um so epie our epie Michaela who's been working on that um document um is uh just doing some final touches um Briana reposo is also working on some of the narrative for that report um and that will be made publicly available so um again that's to help the advisory committee um make decisions in terms of the RFP um process that is also open so

the um request for proposals is now available online uh those applications are due uh Sunday June 16th at 11:59 p.m. um and then decisions will be made and then um some of that settlement money will be um allocated through that Grant um cycle here locally um so again we're really um excited to have Michaela on board to uh do some of that data analysis for us um which is great um the

other thing uh you know we're continuing on with the shared Service uh grant that we're a part of with secon and Swansea um we did receive um an uh well we're signing some contracts we did receive um a a little bit more money on this grant cycle um so we'll be um you know able to do a little bit more as we move move forward with that process um we're looking to hire a

uh an inspector position again that will be shared with seeon and Swansea um we're getting the putting the final touches on a a job description and that will be forthcoming um seeon is looking for a public health nurse um that will be paid through this grant um so if anybody knows of anybody looking for a public health nursing position um you know C con is is hiring um and we're

hopeful to get somebody in there um to support seon as well as to support us as needed um so again that Grant um provides us with a lot of opportunity that we haven't had before um and is something that we um are really benefiting from in terms of Michaela's work um and the work that will be forthcoming with some of the open positions that will'll um be able to post and fill okay gentlemen any questions no

was there anything in citizens input we did not receive citizens input to confirm the date for the next meeting following our usual our usual patent of the last Tuesday of the month it would be June 25th is that okay with everyone looks good okay so we'll go with that can we have a motion to adjourn so moved second roll call please Thomas Corey yes Michael Coughlin yes stepen gardi yes

okay thank you all have a lovely rest of the day see you later by bye