 Just as a refresher, we had first reading of this ordinance at the last council meeting and we referred it to the Public Safety Committee to review. I have reviewed it and I feel very comfortable with it. We've only made one change in the ordinance and that is to take one word out and number 10 of the deals with academic strangers and needles, we say not the word needles at the request of the state leaders. Let me go back and refresh your memory on some of the reasons we sent it back to the committee. I was concerned that the drug paraphernalia definitions were overly broad and that we would be enforcing the laws on convenience stores and other businesses that may have some of this after being constructed by the chief on exactly how this ordinance was put together. The first section 14351 is part of the definition straight out of the state law and we have adopted those as definitions of paraphernalia but you don't. That does not mean that they cannot be sold. These things can be sold. It's when you put a controlled substance with it that becomes illegal and these things the paraphernalia then kicks in on the state level as a civil crime. What we're trying to do is take the same intent that the state law has and make a city ordinance that like all city ordinances would carry a 30 day jail hour $500 fine so that if a CPD police officer saw or had in his custody a person that had a piece of paraphernalia like a lawnmower or a pike and it had a substance in it that could be a controlled substance and pretty well would be a controlled substance they would not have to wait until it was tested to make sure it was a controlled substance before they could issue a city of Plum Young ordinance violation ticket. This will allow them to get people that are making using controlled substances off of the streets right away what rather than waiting for a test to come on. 14-352 are 14 items that can be considered by the officer to help them make the decision on whether the possession of the items that he is observing or the smoke that he's smelling would allow them to make a city of felony ordinance violation with a $500 fine and 30 days of jail hour and 30 days of jail hour. So this is not intended to be an attack on convenience stores or the big shops unless they have illegal drugs in a container that can be tested. We are trying to work on enabling CPD to take some of the control substance uses off of the sidewalk to the city of Columbia rather than trying to put businesses in our business. And I think that's important Mr. Chairman. That's clear to everyone that what this really is about. Chief do you have any comments on that? Maybe just a couple. One I think you explained it very very succinctly. Bottom line is the instrument as you know as described in the ordinance is in itself is not illegal. It's illegal if it's used to you know essentially in jest we're talking about more of somebody putting a substance in their body but also it would apply to somebody that you know might decide to go into farming inside to grow a controlled substance. But it's use of that instrument in conjunction with an illegal drug to introduce that into your body. You know we spend a lot of time talking about violent crime and the impact that has on our community and often times our our emerging drug that threats get overlooked. We you know we've had a steady increase in overdoses over the years. We've done a good job in equipping our officers with an ARCAN to be able to address that. I think this is another tool that allows us to it does put a criminal penalty but it also allows us to you know intercede in a situation where someone is using drugs on the street. It's not it's very very likely that we encounter a lot of folks on the street that were coming across drug paraphernalia. It's more so makeshift pipes to either smoke marijuana, methamphetamine, crack cocaine, heroin in different forms and oftentimes mixed fentanyl. These oftentimes are proven to be fatal in nature. Almost every fatal overdose that we respond to now we have a response protocol and we find drug paraphernalia and that's you know something that the coroner is a that's a something the coroner will take and and you know when determining the cause of death other than toxicology but it's you know there's a lot of different instruments that people use to ingest but and and almost all of our fatal there is drug paraphernalia and then in our non-fatals where we're able to introduce Narcan and reverse that overdose we typically find drug paraphernalia present there too. Any questions from the committee? Yes I always have to put my public defender hat on just for a moment but just for clarity under 352 section 6 and it says the innocence of an owner or anyone in control of the object as to as to a direct violation of this section shall not prevent a finding that the object is intended for use or designed for use as drug paraphernalia and I'm trying to figure out so how do we use are we saying that what is that saying? It's saying that if your son picks up your bike and takes it out and and does something that the innocent if it's your paraphernalia and somebody else uses it you are innocent of the crime. It means that the little boy who picks it up whoever stole your paraphernalia or misused your paraphernalia. Well and I think that's what I was trying to clarify does it does it mean that whether or not you had the intent you could potentially if you determined that the the the the object itself is drug paraphernalia that's what I read it is saying then what though is are you saying that if the drug paraphernalia in possession of drugs and they're good then they are good but the person that's using it is I'm not sure I'm understanding what you are saying. Well that's that's that's kind of why I have the question um this is under information relevant factors that can be considered I'm just trying to figure out um the innocence of well sometimes it's easy to read of an owner or anyone if you see number six chief 352.6 halfway through that as the innocence of an owner or or of anyone in control of the object as a direct violation of this section she'll not prevent a finding that the object is intended for use or designed for use as a drug paraphernalia and that says to me is that if somebody has used somebody else's object that would be considered paraphernalia it would not be an illegal action for the owner of the paraphernalia it'd be an illegal action for the person that got caught. Exactly and even if it's the child and no I think this goes to the point of the concern with the with the vape shops for example that someone is caught with a say has a pipe that that you know they have a receipt for for maybe buying at a vape shop but we find with that pipe that it's it contains marijuana it's you know that it doesn't go back on a vape shop for selling that unless they sold it specifically for the purpose of smoking marijuana. I got you. That is straight out of the state. It can't but I just want to make sure how we interpret it like because what I wasn't clear was if the object itself is deemed drug paraphernalia then what does that mean as far as who found it but I may be over reading it it was just kind of confusing to me. You know you know even if you over read it I think if you circle back to that object that what is being described as paraphernalia you know based on training experience in these various factors has to be accompanied by narcotics illegal substances. It has to be either being being used to consume or or possessed in concert. Big bag of or a brick of cocaine scales packaging material. If you had to independent of cocaine if you just had if we just find a set of scales that's not paraphernalia. Okay I think I'm clear I think I just wanted to make sure that that sentence wasn't doing anything to make the innocent person that they refer to guilty. I think it's the opposite I think it protects that innocent person. Yeah that's that's kind of what I want to make sure okay. This really does center around the word and I mean that's what this whole statue is about it's about the drugs and the paraphernalia together yeah not separately yes sir. Is it the consensus of the committee that this be referred back to the two council yes but my intent is to ask the city council to put it on the agenda tonight like the two-thirds vote for the city council to do that it does not involve finances so it can be done um so no court on why I have the motion to put it on the agenda tonight. We'll get second reading tomorrow. Any further business for the committee? You're telling us. I don't have anything to say. Madam clerk we will stand adjourned. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Duvall you mentioned something about um and maybe it would be for the the next committee meeting um the taxi cab situation the taxi cab permitting yeah did you want it's going to be on the 22nd 22nd yeah we'll just add that to the the 22nd is primarily uh just a general update a general update and we will just add that to the update. I think we will have um versus it being just a stand alone. I think I'm going to pick a item for the goat ordinance to public safety or environment. The stands of the farming committee. We have a public safety meeting. I'm trying to figure out as we have public safety on the 22nd. I was like so why I'll be here today. May not be here. I'm going to the presidential debate. The first part of the trip of substantial evidence really you can't have anyone in control. I feel like I feel like me and Tim are in this together. He's doing all the hard work so I'm going to give them I'm going to give them support. So I guess that's why we're here. I hear what you're saying in the meeting but I just I'm I'm really concerned Mr. Duvall that we meet again next week. You know what this is right? You know what that means almost that quickly clicking all of those steps. Then I get clicker click regret later on. Discussion you would have to make it could be a where there's a discussion about you can tell where the smoking illegal substance.