##VIDEO ID:9-5wk-jvomc## okay um good evening everyone welcome to the Board of Health meeting for the town of East Long Meadow today is November 21st 2024 um and the board is health is recording is anyone else recording all right um and tonight we are holding this meeting uh via Zoom webinar pursuant to um Governor Baker former Governor Baker's uh um executive orders uh suspending certain provisions of the open meeting law back in March 20120 um so with that we're going to call the meeting to order um and the first thing on our agenda here tonight is to approve the minutes of the previous meeting so did everybody get a chance to take a glance at those minutes this is from the meeting uh back on September 4th okay um we need a motion to approve those minutes a motion okay and I can second oh sorry Rebecca that's okay um so uh roll call vote Christine Johnston I Dr Katy dobins hi and Rebecca torsa hi all right so the minutes from September 4th are approved as written um that is fantastic and Tammy is any any body here for public comment I am guessing that the thing that says attendees zero must be nobody there is no one else here besides the panelists there's just us Okie doie well then we are going to take that as nobody is here for public comment so we will move on in the agenda um and I want to welcome our guest this evening Lisa Stevens good night and Lisa we're going to you introduce yourself and um we're going to start out with our discussion um about the uh sample regulation um for sale of tobacco and vape products So Lisa the floor is yours Stevens good night I'm the director of Tobacco Control with the Massachusetts Municipal Association um and I provide technical legal assistance to the cities and towns of Massachusetts on Tobacco control and enforcement questions um and I also I help draft the model regulations that you guys are looking at so I I know a little bit about them and I'm happy to answer any questions or kind of go over any specific policies that you guys um are interested in or may want to talk about I think probably first up if there's anything that sticks out to you in this model from previous ones it would be nice to look over and then some of the other things we were looking to see if you could maybe touch on would be a tobacco free Generation Um nicotine pouches and maybe we can talk a little bit about Flavor enhancers because Alex found a really interesting one this week okay well I always like to hear about a new product so Alex I'm waiting to hear what you found um so I guess the two things that would stand out to me are nicotine free generation and the the oral nicotine pouches those are kind of the two biggest things we're seeing right now the nicotine free generation I'll start with um so that comes out of Brookline it is a new policy it's what's considered kind of an end gameer or no more tobacco use policy and what it does is it says that for people born after a certain date they can no they can never purchase tobacco products or nicotine products in your town but people born before are always able to purchase the products that are legally available um and the way that I like to kind of explain it is that there's nothing that it won't impact my ability to purchase nicotine products for the rest of my life I can purchase what I want um but my four-year-old daughter would never be able to purchase cigarettes or nicotine pouches or um Vapes in her life and that's kind of how it works um and so so that's a policy it comes out of Brooklyn it's it's a relatively new policy there's a lot of excitement around it um and I think there's a lot of potential we don't have a ton of data on it right now um we are seeing more and more towns adopted and as we get more and more towns adopting it and kind of as it's been in place in more towns cities and towns we'll get a you know kind of the the evidence basis that we have but we're seeing really good results um the other thing is kind of when you get some of the push back on it is that uh it infringes on people's rights and uh there the case in Brookline they um challenge it all the way up to the SJC the Supreme Judicial Judicial Court which is the highest court in Massachusetts and they said that the town had the right to uh enact it so it doesn't legally infringe on people's rights um and it is legally allowed so that's kind of that was kind of also what opened the floodgates of towns considering it um Brookline it kind of came out of Brookline Brookline took on the role of being able to defend it all the way up to the SJC and um make sure that the towns cities and towns are allowed to enact this policy so um now that we know that it's it's legally allowed you can and I see a question already and I'm happy to answer that okay sorry I'm a physician so I'm very excited to hear that this is actually happening how do we get more information about how other towns can do this so we have the language in there um but I don't I don't know which model um you had because we were putting the language in there so we knew the towns wouldn't get sued so let me see but if you have the try to find that right I was trying to search it in ours which page is it on Tammy so it's actually in a bunch of places is the thing um it has the uh person born on or after January 1st 202 or 24 sorry not 2024 20 2004 um that is that language so making the change from 21 to that um is what would do that um and yeah I mean it is it is an exciting thing we it has really strong potential um my understanding is that while it is very new this idea of kind of a phased in prohibition is not new it was done in in a couple of European countries back in the 20s to phase out opioid use um like early painkiller use uh so it's not it it wasn't kind of created out of full cloth and then um as I said it it you know it has the potential for being a really positive um longterm and and one of the things that the you know the advocates for it say that they hope is that most youth tobacco use actually is kind of twofold it's it come like they're purchased by an older sibling it's actually a lot of it is legal purchasing and kind of as people get older the people who are able to purchase for like youth are getting farther and farther away from those kids in terms of age so suddenly it'll be a parent that would be able to purchase as opposed like I am much less likely to buy cigarettes for my daughter than I than I would have to buy to buy them for my sister when I was 18 um so that's kind of the other benefit that they see in it as I said it's it's a very exciting but very new um policy uh if you do choose to adopt it uh the other heads up I will give you is that you tend to get there's a lot of um momentum on both sides around this so if if you choose to adopt it um expect a very robust public hearing around it um which is both you know it's a big policy so it's a good thing but it just that's something you should expect and is there any um resolutions or policy work being done at the state level around this as well too just to see where that's headed I believe so there's something at the state house actually tomorrow for it um but there isn't anything like currently proposed just kind of there's discussion about it um especially about among like the top state advocates for Tobacco Control and I'm sure the tobacco lobbyists on the other side are being very vocal as well too okay yeah they're very they're as I said if you have a public hearing you should just expect a very robust conversation around it um and there's a lot of passion on both sides um so and and you know they adopted it actually in New Zealand as like a whole country and before it even got implemented there was enough push back that they they repealed it so when we talk about the industry like really showing up that this is not a like this is a policy that they um hopefully for good reason see a lot of concern in because you know it's G to really really cut into their Market Lisa I had a question if you knew how it was being enforced in the communities that have already implemented it that's a great question especially because of this the finding structure so there's only one Community right now that is that has it in place the rest will come on um they'll the rest it'll be in place on January 1st of 2025 so Brooklyn is the only town that has it right now and my understanding is is that they F $1,000 for sale to someone under 21 right now and then $100 for sale to someone over 21 but under the age which is again it's a very small portion of people right now we're kind of looking at the law to see if we if what the kind of options are to um just because for enforcement purposes it's very confusing for people doing the enforcing to have to kind of do those different age um findings so we're I've been talking to people from Brooklyn and um well like we'll be tou you know kind of touching base with them again hopefully tomorrow to just get a better idea of how they're doing the enforcement and then there's a very like again robust uh working group that's working on this that can come and talk a lot more about the enforcement and like people from Brookline will be able to come if you guys choose to adopt this like they will be able to come and talk to you about the enforcement and how to like do it correctly and how to do it effectively so just so I understand this is the draft that we're reviewing and then if we choose to adopt it then we go to a public hearing around this if that's something we elected that we wanted to do is the language in the draft about the date of birth like is that that's up to us right that because depending on when we did it it we we could actually like does that make sense like people in born in 2004 are approaching 21st birthday so like a year from now we would have to update that date correct no so once you said it it would stay at that date going forward so it would just be at that date um forever so those people would never be able to purchase and anybody born after that so 2004 people born in 2005 2006 they they would be prohibited the big like um so the of the big things is that you don't want to kind of take something away so people that are already able to purchase so that's like so you could kind of go you could go further so you could say like 2006 but we wouldn't recommend going 2002 because you wouldn't want to take away um because the the court case in Brooklyn really focused on the fact that nothing was taken away from people and so that it would just it would open you up to something that we don't know I it's likely that it would also be Appel but we just don't know and I don't like to put towns in a a situation where they are potentially going to get sued um I said and the industry is very unhappy about this policy yeah that was my question like if because if obviously we wouldn't be implementing this if we elected to do it just with timeline right it's already end of 2024 2025 and so folks born January 1st 2024 literally will be 21 by that time so we would have to push that date out and that you just answer question I was GNA say so we should have ours be updated to say 2005 because we would able to have enough time for a hearing before the end of the year because how many days do we have to do that right are we that far into the year I didn't even you don't you guys are the first ones to bring that up but that's a very good point I not like we have to give 30 notice right Tammy is it um 30 or is it 14 30 well and at any rate like we have to do a we have to do a public hearing and then we have to like publicize that we're going to do a vote and there's no way we'd get that done before the end of 2004 um and so we'd want also or 2024 it's been a long day um and so but but then you have a whole year before the next round of folks so we could certainly do that like born January 1 2005 CU we'd have we would have plenty of time for the review and public hearing and implementation yeah that's what I would probably say we should do too so we would have to amend the document first and I mean this is not a final anyway like you know we have our alart that we would go through and I would say that you know maybe we can look through in our next couple meetings and see which parts on here we want to adopt um there's definitely we we definitely need to do at a minimum some um cleanup of the previous model because um there was a few things that were like copied like in duplicate in our last one that we had a bunch of eyes on it and none of us noticed it uh not that duplication of the policy is that wrong but it'd be nice to get some of that out and there's a couple other things in here that I think we wanted clarifying in just after all of the issues we had last year so at a minimum even if we take some time you know to decide I think that at a minimum we should be we should work on fixing some of the language and some of the other things in here at maybe the beginning of this upcoming year and because one of the we could have presented it's like a whole thing but you don't have to adopt it you can adopt like a single policy at a time it's not it's not as if you have to like reopt the whole regulation if you want to make that change or adopt that policy like I know um there is there is changes to the language with of the definition of a good faith sale in here right Lisa sorry can you say that again the definition for a a good faith sale or what do we call it um yeah there's some changes to the and that just kind of changes to clarify for boards so they kind of know what they're looking for um and there's a sale of business I think we were the board that probably bugged you a lot about what that definition was it wasn't just you guys it makes you feel that it wasn't just these black that had this problem there was a number of towns where we were like what does it mean to be a real sale and so that's actually why we included it it wasn't um it it's very very interesting because you know we've been it's been how many months since we've done we've taken away those uh licenses and been moderately quiet except for a few things that Alex has seen recently you never say the c word don't doe no I it's a different a different sort of issu different sort of issues I guess lately which knock on W let's not have anybody selling to miners that that makes me happy we had some busy months last year or this year last year yeah last year so nice at least for now and then the other thing you guys want to talk about was the oral nicotine pouches which is kind of the newest growing product on the market that we are seeing um it's one that I I have a lot of concern over my predecessor DJ who worked for the m&a in this role before me um kind of like flagged it as one of his products of concern so what they are if you haven't seen them they're little pouches they're about this big they come in a container that looks like a SS container um and you put them right Andor luffing gum uh and they deliver nicotine they come the most popular brand is Zin and on they come in three six and N milligram pouches but we've seen them up to like 25 and 30 milligram pouches which is a really high nicotine content for a very quick delivery um they're taking it more and more space the industry is investing a ton of money in them there's a lot of like two for one deals a lot of there's a rewards per I me they're really trying to get people to try these their marketing is a reduced risk product they won't say it's a cessation product or it's a safe product but it's a reduced risk product compared to combustibles given the market growth it's unlikely that it's just current nicotine users that are using them um it seems like there's a lot of new Adoption initiation um on these products and also again we just don't know the safety around NC the the the nicotine nicotine salts is what's in it it's not tobacco it's nicotine salts it's kind of a dry version so we don't have a ton of data the nice thing for Boards of health is you don't have to wait till you find out it's a like it's a crisis you can kind of say like let's wait for this like let's kind of put some limitations on the sale of these until until we know more until we know that they're um safe or not as dangerous um I think probably in the version you have there's just that we would reduce um limit them to adult only stores if you don't have any adult only stores that's obviously not the best option for everybody um we I can also send you language it's just in a new draft that we haven't actually put out yet that limits them to a certain like a certain amount that can be sold like milligrams that can be sold so that was and I'll be completely honest the town that requested this we draft this language for a specific town the town that requested it had a retailer in the audience at the time they said the highest that they sell is nine so we just set it at nine which seems a little bit arbitrary but it's somewhere somewhere between three and 30 seem you know you want to put a limit on and that was the one that was kind of proposed at the time from the public feedback that we got um but comparing them to like nicotine gum which is also which is a c approved cessation device that comes in two and four milligram uh amounts so you know somewhere in that like under you know 10 that seems reasonable there's some data on it that we're looking into that does from the CDC that does really look at the amounts of nicotine that are safe um or not safe but that you know are are um problematic I'm not quite sure about I'm not the science person so I don't know all of this stuff but if think well and that's the the delivery mechanism for a lozenge or even like gum the gum you have to chew it and then pocket it in order for it to release and the lozen is a slow release as well too whereas the pouch it's a much faster delivery system because it goes right into the Buckle mucosa and it actually like Bas it's a chemical nicotine too so it actually it still will have the same effects as you will see with like increasing heart rate and increasing blood pressure that any nicotine product does so children adolescence and anyone who's pregnant you should definitely not be using it um and so I think that's we don't know like you said all the side effects yet but it's still a nicotine product and there is no safe nicotine at any level but I always counsel my patients when I'm starting them on nicotine lenes or gum to recognize you should not be like just you know doing them back to back but they're are small Mill doses versus where like you said the pouch can go up to a much higher delivery milligram and they come in these like you know they come in packs I think it's 15 or 20 um again they look like s the other thing that I think is really concerning is that so we're we're we're seeing that they're that they're kind of Disappearing off of shelves there's social media evidence that kids are using them we're not getting a ton of reports from parents that kids are using them and I think that's because they're very easy it's very easy to to hide usage it's not even like vaping is pretty easy to hide but this is even harder because unless parents know to look for them um they it just looks like a mint container um so it it just it there's also that thing of like it's once once they're kind of in kids you know young people's hands it's it's really hard to realize if a kid has a problem so we really just want to keep them out of people's hands right now well and they're flavored and they don't have the like when people do like chewing tobacco like there's a different odor to it whereas these are just like they smell like mint you know so like a a patient showed me them and I was like because they're trying to like decrease their intake of cigarettes and I was like what I wouldn't even known they were had them in because it doesn't have like an odor when they put it other than like a minty fresh smell they are super popular with the college students um you know we we run that weird like split between legal and illegal in terms of age um on all on all substances um but they are they are probably the product of choice honestly at this point um even moving away from vaping just among my students at least and yeah we hear a lot of reports that they're very popular especially like kind of people like oh they help me concentrate kind of the reg the normal things you hear from students around this stuff so apparently they're very popular on like Med students and LW students as well because they're they're very you like you don't have to go outside you can just people don't know you're doing it stim the stimulant people I just looked up the data because I was um talking about this to somebody else so in middle school and high school students in a 2024 report the percentage was 1.8% are already using it that's really high and we have we do know there's been a 600% increase in the last two years of of use of them so it has been incredibly rapid it and part of that is that I think it was in so it's it's a Swedish company but in 2017 it got bought by either Philip Morris or RJ one of the big tobacco companies then they started Manufacturing in Georgia so they've had a lot more us manufacturing so there's been a much bigger kind of advertising push and things like that in the last couple years it's not it didn't kind of come out of nowhere and people just discovered it there was like a shift in the industry well that's it says in 2022 88 million pouches had been sold in the us I mean there are places that can't keep them on the shelves like the 7-Eleven around the corner from my office like I'll go in there to get like a Diet Coke or something and then people will be there being like I can't find these anywhere do you have them and we like that can't just that's not just people who already use nicotine that are that are purchasing it at that level that's because they can keep cigarettes on the shelves so and yeah so so that's kind of that's the biggest one that we're seeing as I said I mean if you have adult only stores one recommendation is to put them into adult only stores because that is just another layer of protection from um young people accessing them because they're supposed to ID at the door um unless you know you feel your adult only stores are are not the place that they should be there are some towns where they're like we've got one or two but they have so many violations we don't think that would be a good good choice um and then also again you could limit them the nicotine the amount of nicotine in them um so you can say that only you know three 69 again that's what Zin comes in Zen's the most popular I think the is three and six so those are the that's another way you can do it which just reduces the access to those really really high nicotine content ones that are super concerning well the crazy thing is one cigarette is 1 milligram like when I think about when I'm prescribing nicotine patches a 21 patches for the whole day for a whole box and if it's six milligrams in one little thing that's over a quarter of a pack of cigarette bump you're getting in one yeah it's like it's like kind of a crazy when you really compare it to other products it's a crazy amount of nicotine in them so where is that line to I'm trying to find it on the document no that one's not in there because we just wrote it last oh okay but I can send it to you guys and it it just says basically the same thing but it just says that you will not sell nicotine over certain the nicotine pouches are limited to um or you can't sell anything over six milligrams or 9 milligrams depending on which you choose I would vote six as a medical professional I would not recommend nine an adult only establishment an adult and how many adult only establish establishments do we have just the one because the other one we closed right they were Saints was an adult only right Alex no no convenience just one just blue callar and you had said that you don't even think that they sell them there yeah that's right they would have the option too I think that's the thing like some towns don't have any adult only stores which means you're effectively Banning them from the town um and there are people that are use that are trying to use them right now as an alternative to combustibles so you know an outright band is not may not be but sometimes it's a new product so I don't like with some of these products I'm like this is exactly how you do it and and this one's you know we're learning but I think we could like most health experts can agree that the you know anything really above a certain amount is is not shouldn't be sold to people has the nicotine pouch has that been challenged by anybody in communities where it's passed so we've had um industry people show up um to kind of talk about it uh they sharks it's it's been in towns where they don't have any adult only storees so it' Be an Effective ban and so they kind of that was their argument um there's I mean I can't guarantee that there would be a legal challenge but the ground for for prohibiting a product is pretty strong by a Board of Health especially a nicotine product um so they wouldn't have like ve very strong grounds to to um to challenge that because the the truth is like you guys are allowed to enact reasonable Health regulations and it's very reasonable to say that you want to restrict or limit the the purchase of these products when we know that there's very good evidence about um nicotine use and know the health impacts are there many western Mass communities that have already enacted it so there's three or four that have it on their agenda to enact the language is very new so I there's a couple that are in Central Mass and on the East and I you guys are kind of all updating I say I was like belter toown I was in low on Tuesday they are very strongly considering adopting something like this so there's a lot of towns that are on the in the process of it um but just you know they have to go through the public hearing and things like that just kind of the the pace of the process could we do all at the same public hearing so if we do the age change and this could it be the same hearing have to be two separate hearings no it can be the same hearing I was going to say the hearing is about the updated regulations so any Chang to make whether it's the language changes like Timmy's recommending um or it it would be the whole thing right and I it just for tii and for Rebecca like the model some of the stuff in here we already have in just this language that needs to be cleaned up right like the um reducing cap and stuff like that like we have we just it's just language that we might need to clean yeah there's some funny things in there like we had the epies go in and update some of the whereas Clauses too so those are prob like to make because some of the data was from like 2001 2004 so there's some like more up todate data and things like that too so Timmy correct me if I am wrong in this is that we should take another meeting as the board to review and go through the language and then make make our changes in the model and we'll get the updated language from Lisa about the um the pouches so that we have that so we would take a me a meeting to do that and then that gets disseminated and we say like this is what is going to go for public hearing we schedule out the public hearing do we vote in the same meeting as the public hearing yeah yeah okay you can yeah um so it's at least a couple of a couple more meetings um and time for us to go potentially even three like we might want to read it do some do some work on it and then come back review it make sure those are all the the edits and changes that we want and then do public hearing so we' be looking at public hearing probably in like late winter early spring and you know going kind of in a way kind of going line by line sort of you know first down the alart and then kind of looking through and seeing where where it differs from our old regulation and see where we' want to change that and I know that's the holiday so extra homework doesn't sound like clams and then don't worry after this I've got plans for updating some other regulations too I want to hear what Alex hurt what Alex found you know what Alex you sent me the um picture but I realized I am not on my uh I'm not on my laptop this is uh Jam's so I don't have the picture but it is called OCB flavor card Menthol flavor it changes the flavor it's like a have you heard of these Lisa it's like um I have okay I have heard of them it's it just reminds REM me of like a um an air freshener or a like a like a soft dry a softener sheet like a fabric softener sheet that you put in it sounds like those room smelling enhancer things where you slide in a filter and it changes the smell of your room but it's only for cigarettes that's what the picture looks like I just looked it up oh God yeah this is kind of why the flavor enhancer language was written actually was because of products like this that are like designed to um allow people to kind of get around the flavor enhancer like the flavor band which is that like it's what I'm thinking it is I haven't seen I don't if I've seen this particular brand but it's like they slip kind of in the back of the package it kind like a credit card almost it slips in the back of the package and it yeah and it like it's supposed to add the Menthol flavor to the cigarettes so I mean yes it's not doing it by a liquid or a solid it's doing it through Aroma which is still scientifically infusing it so they're they're we're good to go that is in fact a flavor enhancer that is a that is like the flavor that is like what it was the language was written to Target those particular I mean I don't want to say that but like yes that is the kind of the thing that was in everybody's mind when the flavor enhancer language was written was like those there's also like there's like kind of like tubes so you would like take out one cigarette and then you would put in a tube that in the same spot that does the same thing there's a couple of those we're also seeing with the the pouches cuz they're not supposed to be flavored even though it does seem like some of them are um we're seeing that they'll sell like the pouches and then next to them they'll sell like flavor pouches and that's like a little bit harder to say that that's not a flavor enhancer because like someone could just use it on their own um but they're being like kind of sold next to each other as like a way to uh like yeah so you would put like a pouch like the pouch and then like both pouches in your mouth at the same time to add the flavor that's interesting I what what you know there was no question to me when she showed it to me that it says changes the flavor like it's just completely goes against the whole um reason why that's put in there but I thought yeah so you you're good that's that's what it that's what that's what the like the product that was we actually don't see them that much anymore I think because there's language partic specifically Banning them but they do pop up from time to time um and yeah like the drops and stuff there's like all kinds of weird chemically products people can put into their to try to get around the flavor band which I think shows just how important it is to have a flavor band if just to get on my soap box for a second like there's a reason that they add flavors to these it's because they're not very pleasant on their own products like the flavor makes them easier to use and more appealing to kids were there any other um areas in the model um regulations that anyone wanted a little bit more clarity or is there anything else Lisa that you think stands out that we should know about I mean the other big thing is density um but it sounds like you guys have a reducing cap so that's something you're already um aware of and and working on and so that's great and yeah that's those are the said density is the other big kind of policy area that we like to talk about I was just watching a video on how to use the OCB things because i' had never heard of those before ever and the guy was like you put one in the front and one on the back and then it infuses into all of the cigarettes are coming up with is there like the energy when they could just stop using the products that going to kill them but again can't make people be healthy you want to come to me come work with me we you walk around and talk with me while I see patience is there any new language on the reducing cap that no um like so one of the things that really has been driving me nuts is H renewal season and you know our the way that we have it our our regulation written is that after 30 days if you haven't renewed you are now applying like you are a new facility which really means nothing like there's no there's no different process for a new application other than you know inspection that sort of thing which that people get anyway then a renewal process and like is there any are there any communities that do something stronger like you haven't renewed in 30 days after warning you've now effectively lost your license and we can reduce yes there are there are towns that do that um usually they I'm trying so I'm trying to think ones that I've worked with recently so I know that one that I worked with recently had 60 days for Renewal so they had a six day renewal time but then it was like if you hadn't renewed you lost it um but you can you can do that you can if you're treating them like a new applicant a new applicant doesn't have a permit available to them that one's been retired if you have a reducing cap so you could you could do it that way um I would just recommend making sure that you are doing really good Outreach leading up to that um because you know the point you know the goal is compliance not um punishment and you know as much as you know we don't like it we wish that they were making their money other places a lot of these are small small their businesses um so you want to at least give them the opportunity to renew um but yeah I mean there are towns that do that and they are you know very strict and they do followup to make sure that people are renewing but if somebody hasn't renewed then they will pull the license yeah I I'm tempted to want to add some more strength because um everybody gets notified 30 days prior to expiration um our new process with our online permitting is is very simple um I mean outside of you know uploading this year's um you know Revenue documents and and signing the checklist it's a it's it's a no-brainer and it's there for them so we have you those 30 days and then you know in our regs we have the 30 days past that date so that's I guess you know you've been notified for 30 days and now you've expired and you get 30 more days um you know and in that in the meantime we've sent out multiple certified mail U receipts that certified mail um not notices that you are now in violation and it's time to pay and it just it we don't have a lot of them but it just drives me down that we have to constantly do that and make sure that people and so I feel like somehow we need something with a little more teeth even if it's after the 30 days post expiration that if they want to get it back part of the process of is to sit in front of the board and tell us why why haven't you paid you've had every opportunity for 6 full days um I think I can definitely help with some language oh sorry go ahead no I was gonna say I'm I'm I'm not opposed to that at all I just think that we have to do a really good educational Outreach to those particular businesses who are potentially like you know to be able to say to them you know if if this is not done like these these are the consequences like leading up even before that renewal notice I would be really cautious um I'm not like I said I'm not opposed to to that um because I want to make your lives easier as well um but to to ensure that the businesses know that this is a potential outcome of that and that it's not just applying for it again because that we do have the reducing cap it's it's the loss of it entirely and um yeah how many people are so I'm wondering from like the data perspective how many people are actually late and how many people have gone over oh uh this year um almost everybody was late maybe okay out of all 19 stores uh for 14 14 sorry yes so we 's always a mixture for all of our perents there's a mixture of why you might be late you might be late because you've not applied you might be late because you've applied and the collector's office has said you owe a water Bell you owe this and you can't continue with the process until you do that you might be late because you got past that and you were approved and you just never logged back on and paid um so we had a I think that uh after October 1st ABS with so the the last day of um September expires I want to say two of those PE people or maybe one just never applied the rest had started the process um that's not that that's not anything new for kind of any permits that we have which is always everybody knows it expires on the certain day and we do a lot of you know when we get to the point Alex has an envelope in her hand and she walks to your business in the in front of the door that's you know that's when we mean business um everybody's everybody's all set right now thankfully but it it's just one of these things every year you know it's what November now we you know we did go past the 30 days but we got everybody that first the last anybody who was straggling on that first day of November first day of November we've got them all settled but it takes work you know we appreciate your hard work and we also appreciate that like there's a real difference between I never did anything and like I have this outstanding bill that I'm working through to be able to move through the process right so and we you know we still have we have late fees so for every week that you're late you have a late fee um and the way that we've written it in about the the renewal process to me doesn't really strike me as strong enough to just say like oh you don't have a permit anymore we produce the cap but if that's something we really think we want to do I feel like it has to be it has to be written out and they all have copies of these they all have copies of our rules and they know where they can get them if they've misplaced them so everybody knows the everybody knows the dates that expires it's in our regulations it's uh I mean and we these are issues it's not just it's just not it's not just tobacco I it's in our other it's in our other you know food food service same thing except we have you know uh about five times more permits or more way more than five times more permits in that category but you can put something in that'll make it clearer I mean I can I can work with you to do that I would say I mean they're selling a dangerous product so it's not crazy to say that they like need to be responsible business owners I mean I having an eclair I don't know 10 eclaires a day every day might be bad for you as well but oh they still get late fees too well they're also no they're not supposed to sell the miners and we've seen how that has turned out and there are other we have other bylaws in the town that you know allow us to pull other permits if you are not in um compliance uh with other ones so you know whether it's our food service or if it's you know I you can I can always we can always talk to say um The Liquor Commission and or the License Commission about liquor licenses so other things can be suspended or pulled and we can hold that over people but that's a lot to have to go through am I also Frozen just she's not no that happened to me earlier too and I got back on I I think something going on in East Long meta because I was having trouble at the end of the day also at work with the Wi-Fi trying to set the laptop up yeah I'm on my phone now while I'm I don't know what's happening with zoom so it's still a good uh signal anyway so that's some we can oh oh thought we lost pza for a second just everything shifted um I guess that's something we can add to the wish list so I think from now we just kind of update it edit it and then we'll come back yeah I have a hard stop at 7 tonight guys I'm sorry I just realized it's already 6:47 okay well um if we don't have anything else for Lisa I can get through the stuff I really want to talk to you guys in by it was good to talk to you guys thanks I totally was like oh my gosh it's already 647 oh she just she really just jumped off she's no business no no no like she's got her business that I like it all right she was able to come on especially after the drama we had with our Zoom link last time and any you are good we got 10 minutes so the next thing that's up on there is public health Excellence shared service Arrangement discussion so over the last maybe year and a half um I have met with the health directors from agam Springfield and Westfield um as we are the only uh four well outside of Springfield who's too large and they're also a uh kind of not they I can't think of what the name of the the city is um there's certain designation that doesn't really allow them to do this um we're the only communities that aren't part of a shared service Arrangement and right now uh we had met with other shared service Arrangements about possibly kind of uh connecting on to them and the state has said that at the moment they're not allowing other shared service arrangements to take on additional communities and that the The Only Way Forward is really to uh start our own shared service Arrangement and uh over the last year well they've said these sort of things um most of us of the four really reluctantly were like we want someone else to step up and be the um be the host Community for a shared service Arrangement uh and it looks like the only community that would possibly be able to do that is ours um and so just a little uh side on what the shared service Arrangements entail um the a community would be given a grant uh to um basically boost services within their Community to make sure that we are um able to uphold the blueprint for public health um which has workplace Workforce standards um for every position in a health department and as a for a health department as a whole um the majority of Health departments in the state of Massachusetts cannot the way that they are run um work up to that blueprint and so these grants help those communities do that um and when they say shared service it doesn't mean that um um East meta will be providing um inspectional services to agon whatever and or West Springfield will be providing nurses it's something outside of what we do right now that we're sharing um so we might share um a community health worker or share a social worker um share someone to help with health promotions um I we could share a backup health inspector um to help when things are busy that sort of thing um but it's not it's not taking the resources that we the towns currently have and spreading them around it's other resources um and they just contacted us a week ago but a week a half a week and a half ago from the state and let us know that they are opening up a um temporary procurement for the the remainder of the fiscal year and that uh new Shar service agreements would be guaranteed to get that if um they apply so what we're going to do is we're going to take a look at it and look at the application see if the kind of Suits our needs and it looks like e Long Meadow is going to apply um because the other communities aren't really POS poised for that right now with a lot of new employees heading on the helm or employees that are tending to retire in the next year um which also would be it's such a we're going to lose we're going to lose um so much great um experience when that happens because West Springfield's Health director is one of our just she she's yeah she's been a mentor to me I will be very sad when she's gone from our County um so that's some of the things that we've been talking about so there there'll be sort of more to come um when it comes to the Border Health uh we eventually a shared services Arrangement will have they have a name for it it's like a subcommittee um and there will be a member from each of the board of healths of each of the community asked to be on it um so hopefully there would be nobody that's not amenable to that idea um I think they might from the most part it seems like this is something that only meets like quarterly um and it's just because it's for separate governments we would need to kind of align on that to make sure that things are I guess there's a good sense of what those regulations are and how they apply across the board and also just to kind of have open communication so that one town isn't taking the burden of it um but we have a pretty strong Squad between the four uh communities as it is and regardless of who ends up being the host Community um I know that they would you know share the burden of the application process and whatnot and then the basically for the first this first half a year the grant would cover a shared services coordinator that might just be a part-time person um so that the burden of um the burden of doing like A needs assessment and coming up with a budget and all those things um wouldn't be on our staff or the staff of um the host community that decides for it it would be the shared service coordinator that would be doing it for all of us which is great um some of the pluses that if we do become the host Community uh are we get a 15% um cut of the amount of money just go straight back into the community chosen to be either the general fund or if um the town manager and Town Council agrees it could go to um Health Department budget as well so that would be some that would be the plus there besides having all this fund free service um having Alex and Chris and myself go to the top of the list every time there's a training because now we have to wait because we're not part of shared service agreements um and it would also pay for things like lure um and uh other things like that there's a long list I have it is the only state Grant where they actually give you a list of allowable expenses um everyone else says tell us what you want to do um so that's a kind of a nice it's a nice change of pace from what we've uh had to experience in the past um so that's a lot of information I know to put out uh more I can as when the RFP opens I can send out more information to everybody just so they know what we're in for um but the while there' be a little bit of work getting application out in the beginning um once we're rolling and we have a shared service coordinator um who'll be attending these meetings I think that uh it's definitely going to be worth that little bit of effort that we put in in the beginning to kind of get stuff rolling and then we can decide you know with our needs assessment what do we think we need in the community beyond what we can already provide so I think it'd be cool and I know you know especially when it comes to things like health promotion we don't have time over our regular schedule to be to going out there and driving home the things we really really want to drive home outside of you know Facebook and you know getting kind of the word out so it would be nice to be able to have something like that in the community to get that out like getting those getting people uh vaccinated for teap out there so we can stop having babies with prot tusas um anyway is questions concerns um you know and I've been talking to our town manager and Deputy Town manager um and they're definitely you know while you know they want to make sure that we don't take on anything that we can't take on and handle you know they're supportive of this I know in the past it was a different um it wasn't a different shared service agre Arrangement it was not the same program and the same Grant um and that didn't it wasn't loved by all um it's very different uh it's a very different experience and a very different Grant and a very different Arrangement than what was proposed about four or five years ago right Tammy any other highlights in the last minute or two last minute I'll I'll just go over um okay mattress disposal fee uh we voted on it uh but we there's they've come to this agreement that they're only going to adopt fee changes once a year and that is when they when they approve the town budget so we're just going to eat that cost until the budget has been approved and then the fees will change it's really really yeah it is what it is um Liz is actually now on the murf Advisory Board which is fantastic our Municipal recycling facility um especially because we will be entering in a new fiveyear extension of our contract with them and so it's nice to have somebody on the inside to direct kind of um the policies that are going on over the murv um being kind of our direct Rel a on especially if there's you know uh increases in things and whether or not there's changes um in how we recycle so that's really cool um and that covers the seven Hampton County towns that are in that area catchman area um let's see we are finally bringing back hazardous um waste day it's going to be on December or on sorry I skipped ahead J July 19th this year um so there'll be more um to come there's a fix it clinic on December 6th if you go to our Facebook page there's a sign up oh big thing um we now have a Sharps kiosk in town hall um so you don't have to go and bring your Sharps to the health department if you don't want to you can always come and say hi and we love it because you can also come and pick up some covid kits that we still have plenty of those left but if you want a little more privacy we've got the kiosk it is in the foyer in town hall that kind of faces the rotary so it's nice and private if you don't want to talk to anybody and the um Health Department um is part of um an Adu an accessory dwelling unit by right um uh um committee because of um the governor's change um to those rules and now they're allowing they're accessory delling dwelling units are now a right so we need to kind of get ahead of that and put in um and this would be law Apartments uh like little extra houses on your property for rental so we're kind of putting that together and there's quite there's a lot of areas where our health department regulations are um Title Five are septic and housing kind of intersect so we're working on that and I think we have to make that that that votes by February and there is a big Communications audit that the town received a grant to do it's you might have received um an email if you have an employee email but there's also um they're doing it at the community level as well there are links to that up on our Facebook page I mean it's basically um looking at how communication flows within the municipality and within the community to kind of better to figure out a plan to better get um information out to people and this could be all forms of communication not the meetings that we have uh email snail mail you name it so um if people see that please take take that survey and I think everything else all right it's good respect Katie's time here um do we all have time to look at a meeting date or do you w to do that it's always EAS to do in person I can do that really quick I just texted the my other meeting I'll be a few minutes late so okay oh and and and Chris I'll just do hers quickly um we've had a lot of um our we had we had three covid flu clinics um in the month of October they were all mostly very well attended um she's uh we're trying to find ways to get out the information about vaccine and Chris is now um certified a stopid bleed trainer so she'll be doing some stop the bleed and also some hands only CPR and that was everything on my list you did green and so Tammy just as a reminder because I'm starting to look at dates you said we cannot do Mondays or Tuesdays anymore yeah and and some Wednesdays so honestly the Thursday is the best day of the week for the zoom so oh I have classes on Wednesday but I could no that's fine I can do Thursday is fine but I just can't do the the fifth is obviously too soon the 12th I cannot do the 19th I can make work and then the 26th is the day after Christmas so I can't do the 19th I mean we want to look at January I was gonna say do we want to look at early January can we just yeah just because it's a hectic month with December and the holidays and yeah okay um do you want to do like the 16th of January or do sooner because the second again is the day after New Year's um I'm okay with the 16 yeah any any of the Thursdays in January are fine for me right now 16th works really good for me okay I'll make it so it's ours and then so that way hopefully we'll have plenty of time to get all the information from the um Whata call it the Tobacco Commission perfect yeah and Timmy if we can get that as soon as we can get it so that we have some time to review it would be really helpful so we can go through the three of us and mark up and and put our questions in um because that sounds like a meeting where we're going to be doing a lot of um like going through the document word by word line by line maybe we should have our agenda be very small probably G take up the bulk of the time I mean all a I looked at my clock and I was like it's already been 47 minutes and we've been talking about this a lot yeah Lisa she she's thorough she can talk about her well it was great I feel like answered all my questions which was great informative yeah what what what I'll do is go through the checklist like we did the last time compare it compare it to what we currently have um so that kind of helps out that and then hopefully we'll also get the language about the um ni team pouches that said and and I know you have to get it out publicly but like if we can have a couple of days to review it before the meeting would be really really helpful um if we're gonna have a review we just have to have that we have to we just have to put what weever we reviewed in our minute Mee so that's so it can be done asynchronously too like beforehand so if you send it to us we can start reading and making notes and stuff like that independently we can't have a discussion but we can independently make notes but that's why I'm saying it would be really helpful to give us more than 24 hours to look at that one oh no so I this would be something that we be working on now and then right and then we could get it as soon as possible but then we can then make those because and also I mean there's no guarantee that once you've gone through all this and we're looking at it that at that January meeting that whatever it is we're looking at is our final no of course but at least we can at least make it yeah I don't want to be looking at it for the first time in the meeting right no no no but I mean it might not there it might raise more questions right so the ongoing process okay cool all right somebody have a um a motion to adjourn the meeting great Rebecca can second and I will do the roll call vote Christine Johnston I Katie jobbins I Rebecca torsa hi all right ladies have a lovely holiday happy thank you yeah bye everybody bye everybody bye