 Unanimous with the DeVol Herbert and Taylor in the minutes. I hear a motion to adopt the agenda. So moved. All in favor, aye. Aye. The first item on the agenda is the proposed distance requirements for smoke and vape shops. As y'all will recall, we were getting ready to put this on the agenda two weeks ago. And there were some questions raised by the convenience store association about the exemption for tobacco sales, which is in the definition section, incidental and ancillary use, which gives them 200 square feet to display tobacco products without falling under the purview of this ordinance. We pulled it from the agenda and told them to poll their people to see if 200 square feet of display space was enough for their tobacco products. And I talked with Michael Fields yesterday. They have poll their people and they say that the 200 feet is sufficient for them to be exempted from the intent of this particular ordinance. So unless there's any other questions on the ordinance, I think we can move this back on to the agenda. Okay. I don't have any questions. The second part of this is the pending ordinance doctrine. Before you do that. We've been talking to the city manager and I think we probably should do a vote to move it to council with a firm of the recommendation. Well, that's what I thought too. Erica fusses at me every time I have a vote. Okay. So we need to change the administrative section. And when we do that, we need to also change it for work sessions. We're not voting to approve anything. We're just voting to move it to council. Right. I agree 100%. That's that actually came from some constituents and you know, felt it far better for us to vote. It's a lot better than scratching your nose or pulling your ear or doing things like that. Do I hear a motion that we send this to the next agenda? With unanimous approval. So moved. All in favor. Aye. All right. The second part of this. Dealing with the vape shops was a resolution that would go to council along with this. As y'all understand, this is an amendment to the zoning laws, which means that it's got to go through the planning commission and then come back to council. In order for us to have the protection of the pending ordinance, we want to do this resolution that will cover us from having any vape shops get licensed while the couple of months, a couple of few weeks. Or taken up by going through the planning commission and then coming back to our ordinance on the agenda. So I would like to propose that we recommend this resolution to council and make that motion. Second. All in favor. Aye. Mr. Taylor, the next one is your suggestion. Do you want to ask that it's the. No, it's just that what we're seeing out in the market today is is all the positive. Everybody advertises good news, it seems like without telling young people of Columbia, the bad news, and that is that consumption of THC. CBD things. It may cause you to fail a drug test and that could be a work drug test, athletic drug test or whatever. And so we're proposing here is that folks that sell cannabis products that contain THC, which be Delta eight, Delta nine, Delta 10 and HHC are required to post warning signs. At the areas where, you know, in this, where they're selling these products, warning people, warning partners that the product may cause them to fail drug test. I'm seeing just I try most tragedy after tragedy around Columbia where where folks don't understand. Real. It could be legal, but it can still cause you to fail drug tests, which can cost you your job. And, and I mean, we're seeing it and we're hearing about it in high schools too. It's not entirely too much. And I just think it's important that we that we put the message out there that stuff can cause you some problem. Social problems. How do you interpret the Senate Senate that says these signs must be equal to 50% of the size of the purveyors signage of the shop and its product signage. Is that every sign in there or just the ones. CBD signs, CBD, CBD, CBD, you know, anything that there's advertising that's cannabis driven. Have any questions on that? I don't, I just want to make sure. Probably much to what you're saying. You know, will they understand with that 50% of the size of the purveyors signage of the shop and its product. Like, do we need to clarify that language anymore? Or do you think it's clear enough. I don't mind it being 50% of the entire signage but seriously I really don't have a problem with them unless you want to unless you want to clarify and just add the sentence and move it forward you know 50% of the signs of the size of signs of basically cannabis derivatives products. I don't want to bring it back to the committee. I guess what I'm hearing is it's got to be equal to 50% of the sign that is advertising the actual CBD product. I believe that's what we are saying. Can you say it one more time for the people who are whispering during your comments? I think what I'm hearing is the requirement is the notice sign must be equal to or greater 50% of the actual sign that's advertising the CBD product. That's correct. If we just drop signage of the shop and just leave its product signage would not do it. That's fine yeah we just I would make make the motion that we move this forward to council with a deletion of of the shop. Is it the intention to have this move forward on the next agenda? Yes. No next week? Right. Both of these. Yes. All three of them. One just goes straight to planning commission. One of them is going to the planning commission but the resolution will go to the resolution this goes to council. Okay okay so the motion on the floor is to move this up to council with the deletion of those of the shop to clarify the intent of council is to get 50% of the CBD signage. Unanimously. Yes. Second. Yes yes okay. It was unanimous. We've all made the motion. The last thing on our agenda today is the fireworks and James you want to get to a microphone. You can sit if you want. Fireworks ordinance should be page 8 in your packet. And for the most part this is the mere ordinance of what the county Richard County is currently considering but has yet to be adopted but just to go through it this proposal would prohibit the discharge of fireworks in the cities in the city of Columbia between the hours of 11 p.m. and 7 a.m. However on the 4th of July New Year's Eve that window would be extended where you could shoot until 12 30 a.m. If you look at paragraph H in this proposal any firework display that's received a permit from both the city the state fire marshal would be exempt from those time restrictions looking at paragraph C the following activities would be considered unlawful shoot or discharge of fireworks towards the structure animal or person to offer or sell or to actually sell fireworks to children under the age of 14 unless they're accompanied by a parent discharge fireworks within 600 feet of a church hospital or public school and lastly for items 5 and 6 you cannot shoot a firework at in or from a motor vehicle the violations for this particular ordinance would be subject to a civil penalty of up to $100 and I was certainly deferred this body's wisdom how you want to handle the penalty but again that's that's how the county is a contemplating it so orange makes it clear that after three violations at a particular location in the six month period that location could be declared a public nuisance and then looking at paragraph F it makes it clear that nothing in this ordinance shall be construed to prohibit the use of flares or other similar signaling devices they're necessary for the operations of railroad buses trucks or that for emergency they are permitted under any fireworks display permitted by the city and state fire marshal from six subsections a and b is that that correct answer they do they they don't okay how about the number four it is unlawful within six hundred feet of a church hospital a public school that's what I was gonna ask about to make sure that we all communicated with churches some of them may have a display on certain certain days I'm not they don't have to get a permit because they're not shooting big fireworks but if they shoot with them six hundred feet in their parking lot I don't know if they can be closer to church or not I'm thinking about one thing I'm thinking about my church downtown within six hundred feet of the major fireworks being shot for New Year's Eve by the city what about I don't think that's within six hundred feet no it's not shot from the state house it's man it's on South man but it's not close to the state house and when they regulate it they go out and expect you to make sure that all the distance all right what about the downtown church on bull street I don't think no to my foot foot of baseball games baseball game yeah that's shot like behind the stadium yeah that's the downtown church it's nice shot in the early church within six hundred feet I don't think so but we can when you write the ordinance we'll make sure you comfortable with six hundred feet from church and they would have a permit anyway so they would be exempt from it they would be exempt from those if they have the permit but no man the exemption for somebody who's got a permit would be an exemption from the time restrictions in paragraph A and B unless you want to make it subject to see from all the okay I think that probably be this way too I don't know if we want like we don't want to say they can go ahead and be negligent and reckless and intentional but maybe maybe add C4 to that and always keep in mind in time something comes a nuisance that 600 feet is a state law as well is it yeah we can leave it in and if we've gotten old these years what's the pleasure of the committee you want pass it up to the council as drafted I was just suggesting to add along with the exemptions that section which is C4 that if they have a permit then that is not applicable as a committee person I just wanted to throw my two cents in but go ahead chief we we do get complaints about you know people shooting out of certain hours of course we don't go out in force there's more of a law enforcement to go out in force but we do we do give different plans and sometimes when we respond to certain calls they're so close to buildings or dry grass or trees or whatever you know we catch a lot of fires on those days do we have a fireworks ordinance in them on our books now I won't say a fireworks ordinance but we do have get it for you we do have some provisions that apply to fireworks for example it's unlawful to possess explode or ignite fireworks on city-owned property excuse me city-owned parking facilities unless you have a permit from the city and then you can't discharge fireworks in a city park or city recreational facility without a permit from the fire chief I will add that I have heard people who have dogs who are sensitive so it's better to have a certain period of time and then people with PTSD a lot of veterans I have heard that from veterans with PTSD yeah and that's that's one of the things that when we do our interviews or we do make people aware that they are opposed to those type of conditions on that you gotta be real careful up because it does kind of trigger something within them instead shoot fireworks I mean I hear my decision to 3 o'clock in the morning did you have an amendment that you wanted to do yeah I'm I agree with it I just wanted to add under the subsection H where we have the exemptions to include C4 as one of the things that you're exempt from if you have a permit which is that 600 feet requirement so we don't have anything in that as far as shooting away from residents residence stay away yeah away from residents so we we just have to don't shoot close to residents don't shoot on dry grass you know you'd be surprised of what people do when we go out and we respond shoot them in mailbox in the garage we do have number one there is towards a structure animal or person sure but you want to move passage of this would your amendment yes sir so moved second all in favor we can move this forward to council also anything else for the good of the committee we got them oh I'm about to David got all dressed up today and I'm about to cut him off okay no you can sit down David me yes I asked this be referred to the committee just because of some of the things you and I've been been working through and looking at my first question is are our fines correct to compel people to to correct some of the code violations we're seeing in residential neighborhoods I've gotten a lot of comments since we ran for office about the appearance of the city and things like that and it's nice to see neighborhoods and neighborhood leaders you accumulate and send us full reports of things that are issues in their neighborhood I just know that in some cases we've had people just pay the fine leave it like it is so I really just wanted to hear from you on what can we do to inspire some of our folks that code violations on their on the primarily residential lot but even some commercialites do you think you've got the right tools to compel them to bring it up to code number one and number two do we have the right tools to publicize you know what code what kind of code violations are I saw on my cup of a brochure we need something else like that and three is you know do we need to do some type of public service campaign or public awareness campaigns give you a perfect example mr. Brennan got an email from a constituent on Trenum Road which he forwarded to me since it was in my district of somebody complaining about the sidewalk having had weeds and pine straw go across and the person wrote was complaining they couldn't walk by and I've been around a long time and I sent it to mr. Anderson of Public Works and he sent me back a response that I didn't know that the property owners responsible to the curb across the sidewalk all the way to the curb and I just don't know how many people understand that the city of Columbia this particular case had a fence on a side yard to a sidewalk and the and the and the weeds and plants had grown up under that fence and you know it's just when you ride around Columbia today and you see the conditions on the sidewalks and that picture that the guy sent us from the neighborhood over there off of Cross Hill of the tractor in the front yard with the bush hog and and some of these other things I just I just want to make sure you've got the tools I know we've approved some additional code compliance officers in the budget this year that you're in the process I think I'm hiring I want to make sure you got what we need so we can really bring back as pride and appearance in the city and stuff I ride down Gervais Street every day and there's a there's a large screen TV been on the side of the road for a month you know and I don't think we picked those things up at the garbage thing you know so just you know what can we do to really make our city shine again I guess there are several questions there the the public service saying that you're the the getting some media things out about what we do and what we enforce we are in the works of doing some of that I've been meeting with Miss Hootsy I've been talking to Suitsy and we're gonna start putting together a kind of a public service campaign in the month of October kind of showing what we do and I think the right away thing would be a good example one of those things that will tell people about that they may not know about so it'll be a lot of things out of the top 10 things that we enforce that I that you've seen so we'll start pushing that really heavy here in October is the plan okay and can we really get our communications group to lay that you know what it is they send you email it's a three-fold flyer flat doesn't look that can we get them to relay that out where it can be electronically sent out I think on a regular basis sending that thing to neighborhood groups and stuff where they can share it with their people in their neighborhoods I think we'll be a big help and I like to see us even talk to the TV stations about some public service announcements about sidewall to the curb to the curb I just I never had a clue about that I think that's part of the plan we'll try to I think we'll do some public media videos and we'll go on site do some videos some actual violations and talk about them that's kind of the plan I think the media will be interested in it too because during campaign season that there were a lot of news organizations that really wanted to see what the plan was I think that it'd be well received well and you know the bell money we had to dump in issues and people putting tires out by the straight that we don't pick up I I wonder how many times really true I wonder how many times people realize that we're not picking up tires so I just think I just think you know like I say it's really three things number one you know we need to make the public aware number two I always want to make sure you got the fines we can always forgive a fine I want to make sure you're getting you know you're getting a note you got something they knock when you when you leave the tag on the door they know you mean business because I think you told me that day we were out there that 90% of the people that y'all call on almost immediately yes sir it's that 10% problem that we need to figure out how to motivate yes sir and I think this campaign this media campaign will probably it'll hit those 90% of the people that just don't know so we may see a reduction in cases hopefully that's kind of the plan I think that we should part of the campaign would be to encourage people to be proactive and take pride in their community and hopefully and hopefully we can kind of get some inspiration from that I think it's a good idea with the campaign and you know I mean at some point time me and me and Ms. Harvard gonna talk to Mr. Mr. Cliff Judy about his yard of the month program that he's been doing out in Belmont and I think it's got I think it's got some traction I really do and I don't know what I mean he does a little bit more plex and stuff that I think the city could ever do but you know I think it'll be fun for us at some time to make it a fun deal to where you know where we we almost have an annual yard of the month program for the city where where neighborhood associations can you know they would not go do the work let the neighborhood associations dominate dominate yards or things like that or you might have more than one award yard of the month the most improved or performed after it just and just like I say just do it where we become cognizant again of making our place really look good because I chief Austin used to preach it a lot about the broken witness theory and I do happen to believe in that better looking neighborhoods are the lower the crime the lower the dropout rate everything else I agree with that too Mr. Taylor because the neighborhoods that I have that have yard of the month signs because a lot of them do do that they tend to take care because people are naturally a little competitive so I think that is a good idea and I just want to commend David because I've had David working overtime in district one and he attended two different meetings last night one of the recommendations from the Greenview Committee they they just asked about increasing the fines and I wanted they mentioned it can you increase the fines but we didn't get into that discussion yesterday I just wanted to hear any input that you may have or guidance that you may have for us about whether it's effective what are the fines generally yeah there's a bunch of different fines it depends on the type of fine we have two different primary fines there's a there's a criminal like criminal offense penalty which is when we issue some of uniform ordinance summons and that takes them to municipal court that's all that's all criminal fine and the max and that's that's set by the state the max is $500 and most of those anything is great the way the the way the state statute is written for code code enforcement a lot of the violations any cutting your grass can be considered criminal if we write you a summons to go to court it's a criminal offense so if you get found guilty for not cutting your grass that follows you on your criminal record that you were found guilty for not cutting your grass that is a sort of criminal offense and then we have civil fines and civil penalties are tied to a permit those are not necessary as you do a person those are more so to the person who has the permit or the they're tied to the permit so like the rental ordinance has a lot of fines for failure to comply and the point system we have fines tied to that so those are not necessary side to a person assigned to a person and they're not criminal in nature we have any trouble going back to find the landlords on those real deals or you go to the tenants we do it depends on the issue and the issue if it's a care premise type thing like it's litter and debris and over growth we generally take those we'll always notify the owner we do contact the tenant and we send them notices and we'll write a summons to the tenant for those type of things and then the home the property owner will get the summons for structural issues and stuff like that that's not necessarily the tenants responsibility you come to a house let's say the grass is not cut it's got vines going over the top of it what's the process warning first most most everything that we'd address has to be in writing so we do send a notice of violation we call it notice of violation of correction order or you put a door to mail we mail them if it's a structural issue we generally mail it certified but if it's just a care premise type thing we'll just put it in the regular mail and we give them a time frame for getting the work done we have to do it by mail or can we do it with a door tag I don't check with legal I don't think there's certain things in the property maintenance code that require us to put it in writing and I believe it says we have to mail it out to confirm that most of the time we I would look at doing a door just on a warning if we wanted to put a warning in there this is a door tag because sometimes mail goes and by the way to the media in the room I surrender between fire and fireworks off it all kind of stuff not cutting the grass I've been a felon all my life what a day David we're limited at the $500 but we're we also have the ability to do it by each day so if you have a bad situation maybe the tractor in the front yard back be a bad situation you can go back the next day give them another ticket for $500 correct and it's per violation so like the tractor instance and I think I already told you an email we're going to start being more aggressive with that one but and that's what we can do is we can start being more aggressive and every day is a new violation so we can write summons every day every violation is a summon so if there's a tractor in the front yard plus it's overgrown we can write them two summons is every day one for grass and one for every day it's $500 and it's at the discretion of the judge but the state caps it at $500 is there something that would prohibit us from just leaving like a red door tag we have actually used for situations where it's not technically a violation but it looks bad we'll use that I don't know that we could go write some as summons for that but I'll start running I mean my point is before you run if they don't comply I guess what you do is you put a door tag down leave it if they don't comply you come back and check 10 days later or whatever yeah I'll work with legal them only my concern would that be would be as since these are criminal offenses if we hang a door hanger and we go back seven days and write them a summons for criminal offense they're gonna say they didn't get the door hanger and it just puts us in a situation happened to prove that they were notified so that's that's why we generally stick with the letters but if we can do that I'm just trying to think of a way that it won't be less work for you guys to be able to hang a door and go back and do correspondence the first time and number two just that way you know it was on the door I mean I'm all about less work if we can it's more it says warning you know you know it's maybe a red tag says warning you know you're you're about your code violations in your yard I can be a box that you've just checked the boxes that are applicable I don't know I just I hate them neighborhood comes to me and says here's six houses are never you have to go out and look at them then come back and write first time it would be easier to go out look at and put the door hangers on it and then and then go back and check and then do the correspondence I'm not the lawyer and I trust the expert I think that our experience has been the properties that have problems they've had problems for a long time and they're way beyond the warning stage so one of the things we do in district one is we do walking on Wednesday and I've gone through and walk with neighbors and let them point out every single house I take a picture of the house and send the address to David for him to check and see if it's a violation and what we found is some people don't know the difference between violations and they just don't like it but those have seemed to work I try and make it as simple as possible even though I'm not technology I can't even say the word savvy but that has worked but usually the ones that we have people are saying this has been like this for a year or you know David I know this excuse me I know that your officers carry iPads can you hook that iPad up so we will automatically generate a letter that'll be a budget request and I'll certainly talk to the chief about getting that up the chain of command my man Corey over here I said yes sir we can get that done but I automatically fill in the address yeah I think that would go a long way especially if we switch to something what hopefully you know a year or two from now we'll have that city tech program yes sir on the side of garbage trucks and official intelligence that recognizes life as they drive and you get that was pretty slick those guys show sir where was putting in the city of Clemson used to have one this has been 20 years ago because I've been retired for 15 years but they had a thing on the garbage truck that they could punch a button if it was a pothole street light out trash trash thing and it automatically tell them where it was and make a list of this one he's talking about so it's tied to GPS on push-no-buttons it just takes a picture of and you keep going it's pretty neat then it rents you out the street red green yellow and then the list of the 10 violations how much is that because it's a big ticket item I think it was like $50,000 or something like that $50,000 for the first year but that includes the they just come up with us Calusa was the first target market and then rainbow is the second one we're on the list but the city manager sat in with us on it it was pretty cool and I think they basically said check back with us the end of October that's when they thought they have it fully deployed this kind of update where you on personnel worse we've actually just did some interviews last week we got we have three that were putting through of the six of the six vacancies for the housing inspector so we're hopeful we're gonna have some more interviews soon but we're making progress six and six inspectors and one customer service representative and one person on the crew short six but and that counts the new positions to so the new positions you gave us that six is included in those new positions I'm hopeful we'll have those filled in the next few months working hard at it I would but I would I would certainly if I can get the opportunity I'll go back with legal and talk about the the red tag and maybe some other options for fines I think we have what we need in place it's just a matter of us some maybe changing our procedures and policies to make sure we're being more strict with the repeat offenders and see if there's any other alternatives I can that we can work out and come back with a proposal for some maybe ordinance changes or whatever one thing that David knows that I have been really hopping on is when your folks have to go and correct the problem and making sure that the property owners are getting the bills for the work that the city is doing and maybe you know looking at those fees and fines because the stiffer to bill maybe they realize they need to maintain their own properties instead of waiting for us to do one last thing I want to thank you and your crew Major Roberts is in the back to thank the Columbia Police Department just as well as for for how y'all have come together to address the homeless situation out at Forest Drive in interstate 77 I think you found when you went out there that we had folks that were allowing people to camp on their own property and I think you explained to them that it's not the responsibility of the city to clean up that mess when they've allowed that on there and I think I think having code involved with this homeless situation has been a been really a change that we needed to do for a long time and I want to appreciate your tell tell all you guys thank you for that because I think you're making a real difference there too I think they're going to Garner's Fair Road next right we're already out there working I we started yesterday so thank you sir I really do appreciate that it made a real difference for first drive and that's it for me your motion we adjourned so moved second by