Board of Health

CITY OF SALEM BOARD OF HEALTH MEETING MINUTES October 7, 2019 MEMBERS PRESENT: Dr. Jeremy Schiller, Geraldine Yuhas, Datanis Elias, Sara Moore EXCUSED: Paul Kirby OTHERS PRESENT: David Greenbaum, Health Agent, Suzanne Darmody, Public Health Nurse, Maureen Davis, Clerk of the Board, Beth Gerard, City Council Liaison, Jose Uribe, Inkperial Tattoo, Michael Busa, Busa Wine & Spirits, Joyce Redford, Director of NSCATAPP, Laura Assade, Director of Constituent Services for the City with students from the Salem Youth Commission, SSU students (observing the meeting) TOPIC DISCUSSION/ACTION 1. Call to Order 7:00pm 2. Jose Uribe of Inkperial Tattoo J. Uribe of Inkperial Tattoo addressed the Board regarding his variance Shop - Request for a Variance to request. the Requirement for an Autoclave in the Body Art Regulation D. Greenbaum said both he and S. Darmody have been to the shop and they agree there is no need for the autoclave based upon the operation he is going to run, but it is in the regulation so he needs a variance for it. J. Uribe will have monthly medical waste pick up for his sharps. Everything else is disposable. There is no longer a need to have tools and equipment that have to be autoclaved and have spore testing. G. Yuhas motioned to approve the variance to the Body Art Regulation requiring an autoclave. S. Moore 2nd. All in favor. Motion passed. 3. Busa Wine & Spirits - Discussion of Suspension and/or Revocation of M. Busa was very apologetic and said he is embarrassed to be appearing Tobacco License for 4th Offense before the Board again since just a few months ago he gave us his word it Tobacco Violation wouldn’t happen again. Each time there has been a violation it has been by a new employee. After the last violation he told his managers there would be no new employees hired for 30 days, but that somehow fell through the cracks. A new employee was hired who was not used to IDing people and that employee sold tobacco to an underaged person. He suspended both the Assistant Manager and the Manager for a week each and the employee who sold was terminated. He wants the Board to know they are not turning a blind eye to people just to make a sale and they understand the seriousness of the offenses and they are trying to change it. They are waiting to update their POS system to be able to punch in the age for cigarettes, but it can take up to six months. The last violation occurred during the wait period for the update. They do try. They do have training. He said he understands there has to be some kind of penalty, but they are family- owned with three other stores; one in Woburn and two in Lexington. Tobacco is a big part of their business, so to not be able to sell cigarettes would really hurt their business. He said they have been there for twenty years and would just ask the Board to consider their long history and not just their brief history when determining the length of the suspension. Again, he said he is embarrassed to have to stand before us and explain what happened. He will make sure he comes to the Board before the suspension is lifted with a solution to show us that he is more than willing to make sure it is in place before the suspension ends. J. Redford said the last two times there was a violation there were four employees in the store and there were two young people in the store at the same time. Her concern is that employees weren’t accustomed to checking IDs and the primary business is age-restricted products. She wonders if alcohol is also being sold to minors. M. Busa reassured her no alcohol is being sold to minors. J. Schiller asked if Busa had any evaluations when they passed or if they have failed every time. J. Redford said they passed two out of six times. They failed four out of six times in a 36-month period. She feels it would set a bad precedence not just for the other stores, but for all of them if we go lightly on the suspension because then there is going to continue to be a feeling of chances, chances, chances and at what point would it be enough? J. Schiller said there is a systemic problem within his business. S. Moore asked about time limits for the consequences. J. Schiller read aloud the part of our regulation related to fourth time violations. It states there must be a minimum suspension of 30 days. He said a fourth violation really puts the Board in a bad situation. We don’t want to be in the position of causing harm to his business, but the Board of Health puts regulations in place for a reason. He recommended M. Busa come back to the Board with a more iron-clad plan as to how he would prevent this from happening in the future, whether it be training, pamphlets to his staff, plus an electronic system setup. D. Greenbaum feels 30 days is too lenient at this point. This regulation has been in effect for nearly 20 years. It is nothing new. J. Redford said there is a minimum suspension of 30 days, but the rest is discretionary to the Board. J. Schiller said we need to decide the length of the suspension or whether it’s a permanent revocation. J. Redford agrees that there is a systemic, on-going problem within his business. G. Yuhas asked if there is usually a supervisor with the employees and how that works. M. Busa said yes, there is a manager or assistant manager and occasionally a night supervisor who holds a key. They are all trained in not selling alcohol or tobacco and to take ID from anyone under 40. They put the ID through the scanner. It’s good software but unfortunately, they’ve had some employees not using it. J. Redford said the POS system is not foolproof because it can be overridden. She recommended training for his employees and offered to meet with him and his staff for training. M. Busa said he will do whatever it takes and will gladly accept her offer for training and thanked her for the opportunity to partner with her. They will be in touch to schedule dates for training. J. Redford also recommends he check his system periodically to see how many times the system was overridden and to make sure his employees are not just punching in the same birth date over and over again. She said NSCATAPP’s goal is compliance. J. Schiller said it is reasonable to recommended to suspend the license indefinitely, but revisit in 60 days to consider reinstating it. The consideration of reinstatement would take place at the 12/10/19 meeting. J. Redford will be available at that meeting. D. Elias motioned to suspend indefinitely with a revisit in 60 days. G. Yuhas 2nd. All in favor. Motion passed. M. Busa thanked the Board for considering everything and promised they will go through the training and be in compliance. D. Greenbaum acknowledged members of the Salem Youth Commission and said they will be on the November agenda because they would like to talk to the Board about advancing the flavor restriction to include mint, menthol and wintergreen. They are here to let the Board know they are passionate about it. L. Assade from the Mayor’s Office, who is also the advisor for the Salem Youth Commission, spoke about students from the 84 Movement and other students present and in full support of the statewide ban the Governor put in place to limit access to vaping products for young people. Today was the first documented vaping related death. She said the kids have been working on this project for several months now. They have gone to the Statehouse to be part of Kick Butts Day and have partnered with Girls Inc.of Lynn to do other anti-tobacco and anti-substance work. The Salem Youth Commission has also partnered with Salem Academy and Salem High this past year to do work around Health and Wellness Week. They are also here tonight because they are part of a movement through an organization called the Truth Initiative. They will be participating in the National Day of Action on Wednesday. The young people were there for a peaceful demonstration to show that they are all in favor. They held signs and wore Truth Initiative t-shirts with a dog that represents animals against human testing. The Youth Commission will be meeting with J. Redford on Thursday, 10/10/19. J. Redford said there is a proposal to remove the exemption to allow for mint, menthol and wintergreen from retail establishments, except for adult- only. She advised the Board there is legislation at the State level to try to remove all flavors, including mint, menthol and wintergreen, from all establishments and not exempting adult-only. She said Swampscott is the closest community to remove the exemption, but there are many other communities who have done the same. D. Greenbaum reported that he and J. Redford discussed putting a limit on the number of adult-only establishments in the City. J. Redford suggested we consider a new definition of “adult-only” retail store. She gave J. Schiller a sample of the definition. She will bring in a draft regulation for us to consider. She suggested we may also want to consider dual caps for tobacco. In addition to the overall cap for the number of tobacco establishments within the City, we could have a separate cap for adult-only establishments. It only makes sense to limit the number of adult-only establishments. Dual caps would prevent everyone from trying to open up as adult-only which would defeat the whole purpose of the flavor restriction. Peabody, Danvers and Lynn all have dual caps. J. Schiller said the youth are inspiring. J. Redford said this group is motivating and are great youth advocates. The Board thanked J. Redford and she thanked the Board for being on the cutting edge and also holding those accountable who should be. 4. Approval of Minutes S. Moore motioned to approve the minutes. G. Yuhas 2nd. All in favor. (September 10, 2019) Motion passed. 5. Chairperson Communications J. Schiller said D. Elias reminded him that the Health Agent formal evaluation is due in February. He suggested we add it to the next agenda for discussion. D. Greenbaum does not believe there is any evaluation tool or mechanism throughout the City that he is aware of, but he will inquire about it and let the Board know. Previously when he was on the union board there was talk that the City was going to propose a tool for evaluation with an evaluation form for everybody, but he doesn’t know what came of it. 6. Monthly Reports-Updates a. Public Health B. Gerard asked about the legionnaire’s disease cases. Nurse’s Report D. Greenbaum said two cases were reported from the same multi-unit living complex. He said we are working with MA Dept. of Public Health. We sent the management company letters to notify the tenants with and we are hoping more people will be checked by their doctors specifically for legionnaire’s. Some people may be sick and not know they have it. We will be following up on the issue. S. Darmody said legionnaire’s is a reportable communicable disease, so once the lab gets a positive result it goes out to the State lab and she is notified instantly. S. Darmody advised there will be a flu clinic for seniors on 10/23/19 at the CLC and one for employees and their families on 11/7/19 at the annex. Copy available at the BOH office. b. Health Agent’s Report D. Greenbaum said the Governor’s vaping ban required him to close shops immediately. Most shops did it on their own. Juul Corporation has suspended their online sales to MA as part of the vaping ban. G. Yuhas agreed that something had to be done, but she feels sad that people invested their livelihoods into these businesses and were given licenses. It should have been checked out before they were given the license to proceed. D. Greenbaum said he doesn’t disagree but feels on some level people must have realized vaping would have a lifespan. It was sold as an alternative to get off cigarettes and it’s quite a bit more harmful than we knew, but the science is still out on it and when we do find out it’s probably going to be a lot worse than we thought it was. D. Greenbaum reported there has been positive mosquito testing in Essex County, but not in Salem. We have been very lucky this season, but we are not out of the woods until the first hard frost. He will be going to court on Wednesday for 36 Loring Avenue. The City is hoping for an order stating that it won’t go back to the condition it is currently in. It has been a long 15-year battle trying to get the owner to clean up. He is trying to resolve the issue once and for all. He has been working with Salem Housing Authority regarding the issue with the dumpster at Garden Terrace. They have requested the use of toters in place of the dumpster. He does not think it is a good idea. He feels SHA maintenance division should just monitor the dumpsters and make sure the trash is in the dumpsters, close the lids and have the dumpsters emptied more often and that will go a long way to resolve the issues happening in Garden Terrace.  The decision is ultimately up to Dave Knowlton in Engineering. J. Schiller reported he heard a news report on NPR about a consortium of health departments in Winthrop, Chelsea and Everett. Cities and towns got together to identify pressing health needs such as vaping, housing and the opioid crisis. It was interesting because he had been speaking with Kim Waller, who is a professor at Salem State, about teaching a class about identifying a need within Salem to report about and vaping was one of the issues she was thinking of exploring. He feels there could be an interesting and possible productive result of that. There were a few students of Kim Waller’s class observing the meeting. D. Greenbaum said he has heard about it at a couple of meetings he was at. He knows MAPC was working with them and knows they are working on a lot of public health issues, but they didn’t give a lot of insight into what they were doing. Copy available at the BOH office. c. Administrative Report Copy available at the BOH office. d. Council Liaison Updates The Council finally passed the zoning special ordinance that allows them to issue a special permit in zones that are R1 or R2 that have municipal and religious specific buildings that can now be developed. It requires a minimum of 10% affordable units using 80% of the area median income. There will be more discussion of accessory dwelling units. It requires two passages because it is related to zoning. They are having trouble setting meeting dates before it expires on 11/20/19. Some Council members are trying to keep meetings from happening prior to the election and are making it very difficult because of the zoning, but zoning came along after most of the houses in Salem were built. Renters don’t have to be related to the owner and the unit would share the same utilities as the main house. The units could be very beneficial as they could solve some of the housing issues and also help some residents be able to stay in their homes in Salem as they age. D. Elias motioned to approve the reports. G. Yuhas 2nd. All in favor. Motion passed. 7. New Business/Scheduling of Future - Health Agent formal evaluation discussion Agenda Items - Smoking discussions will continue MEETING ADJOURNED: S. Moore motioned to adjourn. G. Yuhas 2nd. All in favor. Motion passed. 8:05pm Respectfully submitted, Maureen Davis Clerk of the Board Next regularly scheduled meeting is Tuesday, November 12, 2019 at 7:00pm At City Hall Annex, 98 Washington Street, 1st Floor, Salem, MA