 Alright, webinar has started. Oh, you know what I have to get is the preamble. Almost forgot that. Okay, I guess we should get started. As you went to chapter 20 of the acts of 2021 and renewed by Governor Mora Healy, this meeting of the Board of Health will be conducted via remote means members of the public who wish to access the meeting may do so by following the instruction on the Board of Health posted agenda via zoom. The attendance of members of the public will be permitted, but every effort will be made to ensure that the public can adequately access proceedings as soon as it is technologically possible. After this meeting all approved Board of Health minutes are posted on our website once they are approved by the board. I will now open this March 14 2024 Board of Health meeting at 534 p.m. with a roll call. Tim. Yeah. Risha. Here. Maureen here. We know the tremella is away, but we will wait for. We'll see if Lauren can connect in today. Yeah, I sent her a text message just now. So, we'll see if she responds or logs on. I guess we should get started with the received and reviewed the minutes of February 8. Did anyone have any concerns about the minutes. I read them and I thought they were okay. They look fine to me. Yeah, I did. I don't have them in right in front of me, but I didn't have any corrections that I noted this time. And we, the three of us were all here at the last meeting, right. Okay, so. Can we have a motion to accept the minutes from the February meeting. I can make a motion to accept the February minutes. And I'll make a second. And any discussion. No. Can we vote Tim? Sure. I. Risha. Hi, Maureen. Hi. So the minutes are accepted. The next item is public comment. I don't know if there's anyone in the public. It looks like there may be. We can allow public comment on the. Items in the. On the agenda, if anyone wishes to speak. Hello. Hello. A three minute. Hi, Lauren. I actually was trying to say that I wasn't feeling well. So I wasn't going to stay for the meeting. I just got to a place where I could hear what you guys were saying. So I'm not sure. If we had enough people to continue the meeting. I think we do. We have three people, which is a quorum. So you can do, you need to do. Okay. Say that again. Okay. Okay. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. That's quite all right. Thanks for letting us know. I'll take care of Lauren. Okay. Thank you. We have Cheryl. Raising her hand, but. We can just come over to the table. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I just. I think. I need to. This one out. Okay. Okay. I'm sorry. That's quite all right. Thanks for letting us know. I'll take care, Lauren. Yeah. So we can just come over to talk. I'm not sure if we're into. Later in the meeting. Yeah. We can ask her. I just wanted you to know I'm here. Okay. Thank you. Thank you Cheryl. Is there anyone else who wishes to speak? I don't see anyone. Okay. go right ahead into the discussion of old business tobacco sales regulations. And we can, is, I know we know Cheryl is here, is Meredith also on the list? She's here. Yes. Okay, so I guess we can promote them to panelists. Yeah. Thank you, Kyle. Okay. I see Cheryl's on the, there she is. Can we? Hi, Cheryl. You're muted, but we can see you. Mm-hmm. Hi, Meredith. I am not sure where my camera is. We can hear you, though. So that's good. Okay, fantastic. That's all that counts. Yeah, that's important. Thank you. So yeah, I just, for those who don't know them, Cheryl Sabara is the executive director of the Massachusetts Association of Health Boards and Meredith, in addition to being the health commissioner for the city of Northampton. She is the coordinator for the Pioneer Valley Tobacco Coalition. So they're here to kind of help us and answer questions as we sort through a few of the topics that we wanted to review in our tobacco sales regulation. Thank you. I think we had set out a little plan so we could hit the things we thought were most important first and keep this within our timing for the meeting. There are some timing issues for subsequent issues. And first of all, Cheryl, thank you for going through our regulations and updating them with some of the updates from your sample regulation. We're not gonna go through things bit by bit today. That'll come offline at some point in time. Right now, I guess the first issue we wanted to speak about was the issue of violations. Our regulation follows for the most part the state regulation with the first violation having a fine of $1,000, but with also a suspension of up to seven days. The state regulation does not, the state, the MAHB sample regulation does not include that first time suspension. So that is a question of whether we want to continue to do that. That the exception is that if it's a sale to a minor, then the first time offense also includes a suspension. Correct. And the reason that the sample template has just a suspension for selling to someone who's under 21 is because that's the way the regulation, the state regulation is written. The state regulation only provides the ability to suspend a permit for selling to someone under 21. Now, you may, I think I have described and I'm sure Meredith has as well, the fact that there is litigation right now in Norfolk Superior Court where the judge held that Braintree also requires a suspension for the first defense regardless of what the first defense is. So it's very similar to what is in the Amherst regulation. Cumberland Farms sued the Braintree Board of Health claiming that they did not have the authority to issue a suspension for a first defense for anything other than selling to someone under the age of 21 and the judge in the Superior Court ruled in favor of Cumberland Farms and said that the Board of Health was preempted or prevented from issuing a suspension for a first defense unless it was for someone under 21. And his rationale was that the way the state regulation is written, the state regulation separates out the violation for selling to someone under 21 from all of the other violations. And therefore he interprets the regulation as intending to prohibit cities and towns from enacting, from levying suspensions. Now we disagree with his interpretation but we have spoken with the attorneys at the Department of Public Health and they also disagree with his interpretation but they understand why they think that his interpretation is a reasonable interpretation because of how they wrote the regulation. Even though they didn't intend for that to be the consequence, they think it's a rational conclusion for the judge to have made. So it's really up to the Board whether they want to, you know, the ruling in Norfolk Superior Court is not binding on the Board of Health. However, Cumberland Farms has appealed this to the Massachusetts Appeals Court. So we don't know how the Appeals Court is going to rule. There were two other issues, but- I was gonna say, why did they appeal if they won? Well, because they lost on, they also claimed that the Board did not have the legal authority to issue a $1,000 fine and that they were not offering a product for sale. The judge upheld the brain trees authority to do that. So there, but we don't know whether, you know, we just don't know because we haven't seen, we've just received a notice of appeal. We don't know upon what grounds they're going to be appealed. So it's really up to the Board as to what the Board wants to do. I will say that we always have a severability clause in our templates, which says that if any part of the regulation is void for any reason, whether it becomes illegal, the rest of the regulation can stand. So they're just so you know, if you decide to keep it in and the appeals court rules that it is illegal, your regulation will still stand. That piece would just come out. Hi, Cheryl. Can you help me understand what it means to not be binding, that that ruling is not binding? It's a decision in Norfolk County. So the courts are divided in Massachusetts by counties. So you are not in Norfolk County. So it's not binding outside the county? No, it's binding on the county, but not outside the county. But the appeals court decision will be binding on everyone. That was my understanding that, and we just learned this from Brookline that towns can go above and beyond what the state regulations are in addition to the state regulations. This seems to be similar to that in my mind, but maybe there's wording that I'm not aware of. Well, yeah, the difference is that the distinction is that this ruling is about a specific regulation, the way the language was written in a specific regulation. The Brookline case was about the law itself. And the law, you clearly can be stricter in the law. The regulation just addresses how the law gets enforced. I see. I see, because you're right, that was a bylaw that they passed in Brookline. I don't know what people, we don't have to make a decision here and now, but we haven't been putting motions and voting on these things. We've just been getting a sense of what we wanna do and figuring out we'll put it into a motion all at once and get them passed when we're ready. Any other questions, what do people think about this? Did we lose Tim? He's on mute, but no, he's- Oh, I'm here. Okay, I guess I gotta get a better view. I'm not seeing everybody. I mean, I am, based on that ruling, I'm hesitant to, I'm not sure the benefit of keeping it outweighs the risk. It does seem like if I was Cumberland Farms, I would then be looking at all the rest of the similar municipality regulations to get them off the books. So it feels like it could be challenged, fairly quickly and again, I'm not sure that the, I mean, just to be really specific, when you read out the violation, you said up to seven days and that's not what it says, it says seven days. Sorry, I didn't have it right in front of me. So it's an automatic seven consecutive business days. Am I, this is a question to everyone. You could add, if we felt like there was some sort of extreme violation, we could add a suspension to any other or we can only add a suspension. I guess my question is, is the problem here that it's automatic or can we not ever add a suspension if it's not under 21? No, the issue is you can't add a suspension for a first offense. Just for a second, third, fourth, whatever, yes, you can. I mean, I feel like the sales to minor is the main thing we were trying to control here and that applies to that regulation. I could live with the version from that goes with the state. I don't think we need to have that suspension added, but I'm persuadable. Tim or Kiko, do you have any more, Meredith? I think for large vendors, I'm not sure what suspension means. Will they be removing the suspension or will they be removing those products from the shelves and continue with their business? Or I'm not sure what it means for Cumberland farms. It should mean that they can't sell tobacco for seven consecutive business days. And Meredith can answer, and I believe in your reg, they would have to take it out of the store. That is correct. Is that clearly spelled out in the regulations that it has to come out of the store? But don't. At least so. And Cheryl, isn't it in the state regulation as well? Probably, let me just talk. So we don't have that written. I have not seen that written, but I haven't looked at the state law, so. Okay, hold on, I've got the state law. No, it is not in the state law. Is it written that way in the Northampton Regulations, Meredith? Specifically, that products have to come off the shelves? You know, Tico, it had to look, because we were just debating this the other day, and. It always, I mean, in case, it has to come off the shelves. The question is whether it needs to be removed from the premises. From the premises, I see. Okay, got it. So you can't just put a curtain in front of it or like a sign that says we're not selling tobacco, you have to take it off. Yeah, okay. And I'll get back to you with that information. Great, thank you. I guess it doesn't happen that often, Meredith, I don't know. Yes, so my vote here would be to change our previous language and make it match the state. I would agree with you. And I think that's what you were saying as well. Yeah, it's fine with me, so. Yeah. Now, Cheryl, is there anything else? We have the unified, no, we have separate violations. If it's a violation of the state regulations or laws versus our regulations, they're different fine structures. And I'm good with continuing that, is there any argument for making a unified violation policy? I would say that is a decision that I'd like Meredith to weigh in on that since she enforces in many different municipalities. That it sometimes is confusing to have both, but that's especially if your program is in other municipalities, but that's really a Meredith and Board of Health discussion. Okay. Sorry, I was trying to locate my camera. It's somewhere on the ground, so that's all for you. You are getting right now. We can see part of you dying. We see half of your water bottle. Water bottle. And your public health jacket or sweater. So funny. So our communities are pretty split when it comes to this. It can be confusing if you have the dual penalty structure and trying to keep on top of it, especially if you have a dual penalty and a tolling period. But the staff at PBTC can certainly help with that. But the benefit of having the dual penalty structure is that you have a lot of local regulations that you don't necessarily want to assess a fine of $1,000 for the first violation or the second violation of $2,000. Like some of the local violations that we think about are maybe the minimum pricing. They're selling the cigars under the minimum pricing. I don't think that's worthy of the state penalties. That's why some of our communities, they want one force. They want to have this tool, but they don't want the levy to be as much as it would for a sale to a minor. So where other communities have adopted the unified finding structure, if there is a violation of the local regulation and you've got shell in there, then you're bound by regulation with the penalty, whatever's written in there for the fine and the suspension period. And again, when it comes to some of the lesser violations, I don't think the violation is worthy of the penalty. So that's why you have communities going both ways. So it's a little easier and clearer if it's all one, but it seems a little harsh for smaller violations or more. Right. So those communities that do have the unified, when there are violations, they issue kind of like a soft warning. We note it in our tracker. And then if there's consistently the same violation, then they issue it. But again, when you have that word shall and you have to think about equity, what you do for one, you do for all, it gets a little, the road isn't straight and narrow. Anybody have thoughts? I mean, the confounding part there feels like we would have to make a decision in each case, that it's not an automatic, which does that mean we have to meet and make the decision? Who makes the decision? Now, we have a list of what violations fit into the, for the Amherst violations. What panels, they're separate lists of, we have a list in the regulations of which one come under the town penalties, like for fines, like 100, 300, I forget the numbers, but it starts with 100, 300, 500. Maybe there's some suspensions in there too, but it's much lower than the state. And there is a list and it can apply to the regulations that aren't part of the state law. So the state law has to have the state fines and the local laws or regulations can have the lower penalties. But you don't have to meet and decide. We don't have to decide case by case. I guess then the part that would be confusing to me is that it does say, in the case of a first violation, a fine of $1,000 and the sales permit shall be suspended for seven days. And then it's, there's a conflicting piece of information later that says, unless the fine is X, Y, and Z. Well, it says I can try to find it. I will look at it. But I, yeah, the work between that section around violations is very clear that it's 1,000. And so I find it confusing if it's not 1,000. Well, if you have an A and a B. Right. We hear the value of specific to town of Amherst, the violator shall receive for other sections. OK, so it's just that section. Yeah, it makes it clear which structure applies to which regulations. And then there's a whole list of our regulations that fall under the town structure as opposed to the state binding structure. So I don't think, I don't know. It hasn't come up that much, but I think it's not crazy. You know, it's not something to be cited case by case. OK, well then, as long as it's clear and it's not decided case by case, then I'm fine with what we have now. OK. Tim, do you have any? I think it's a, the penalties are some sort of a deterrence in general. But what happens typically is the so-called catchability of this offense rests on the inspector, you know, randomly checking or whatever it is. But most of the time, any sales to the miner goes through some sort of a adult coming and buying and giving it to the miners. Right, so I think, is it right? I mean, I'm just doing some possibilities, I would say. Yeah, I mean, hypothetically, yes. But that's not under our front view, I guess. Exactly. So in terms of, I'm saying the actual violation, say, butler vendor is going to face, I think it's reasonable to say that it is a deliberate violation, you know, $1,000 penalty for the first step and say it's reasonable. And these other violations include like the pricing of the cigars, the prohibition of sales of blunt rafts, the prohibition of vending machines, things like that that don't include sale to the miner. That's a state law. So we're required to follow the state penalties on those laws. So can I clarify just to make sure that I understand is that in talking about violations that are not specific to selling to a miner, you are proposing to say, if it's a first violation, not for sales to miner, other things, that you would remove the suspension of the license to be in sync with the state regulations, right? I think that's what we thought. Yeah, OK, I just wanted to make sure. And we were moving on to this whole idea of dual structure versus unified structure and fines. And I guess I would feel more comfortable with the dual structure because of the weight of those penalties for the less flavorant or serious violations. I don't have a strong opinion. And therefore, I'm fine with keeping it how it is. OK, so like you said, we're not going to do vote on this, but we wanted to just get issues out into the. Maureen, there's one more part to this suspension part, which is the choice around the wording of up to 30 consecutive days or a specific amount of days. Is that something that we should be discussing or is that that's just in there that the state model suggests that we choose between? We have one now. But yeah, it's gotten to look at that. I'm not sure how we are. How we are looking at that right now. Well, again, in this date with the state law, it shall suspend for 30 days in the three or more violations. Yeah, so we have the shells for the number of days we don't have up to in our regulation right now. Yeah, so our first is seven, which we're going to get rid of. Our second is seven. And our third violation is 30. Yeah, I just want to. So everyone's. Yeah, and if we remove that seven from the first one, we'll be in sync with the state with the sample regulation. Right. And as you said earlier, Risha, that's clearer because if it's up to 30 days, then there's some value judgment or some decision that has to be made. Right. Yeah, and you don't want to do that. You don't want that. Yeah, right now. You know that then if actually I haven't really looked at it in this way, but then for the violations of other sections regarding the town of Amherst, the first violation is a hundred dollar fine, but also a suspension of seven consecutive business days. So that might get rid of that in all the first violations. Right. Yeah. Yeah. So on section B as well. In section B and then. And then in the second violation for the town regulations, it's $200 fine and shall be suspended for 14 business days. Maybe that should be less. Yeah, it seems weird that the suspension would go up for the smaller violations. Yes, it doesn't seem to match very well. I don't know if we want to talk about that right now or make sure we come back to this when we're actually. I think I would suggest that we make that suggested change, that they match and then we can, when people are reviewing it. Yeah. Discuss it. Right. I think so too. Okay. I also wanted to add that Northampton does have that clause, that products. If you have a suspension, all products have to be removed from the premise. And I was looking, an older version of Amherst had it in there, so that's why I was a little confused. You had it in the regulation as well under violations, but I'm going to bring up your new version now. So I'm not sure if it got left out when you amended it. Yeah, I was around then. I don't remember it, but that's certainly possible. Yeah, it was P4. It was the little paragraph after that, but I'm going to dig up your new. It's on page 11, section E. So it is there? All tobacco products shall be removed from the retail establishment upon suspension or revocation. Yeah. Okay. So I thought that was it. Sorry, I read these a lot. I'm confused. Okay. Hi. Gosh, I don't. Yeah, I don't remember reading that. Okay, that makes it clear. That's good. Any other details about this section? So I have the next section as the number seven in my document, which is about the age of the tobacco handler. Is that the next one? Yeah. I guess we haven't found other towns that have that, that kind of regulation where there's a definition of tobacco handlers and an age and education requirement. I think we already talked about the education issues, but we haven't talked about. About that age. And so just if people aren't looking at it right now, we have a restriction in air marsh that says tobacco handlers gives a definition of those and that's only going to apply when it's a non-age restricted venue. So like a Cumberland farms. And we say that to handle the product, you have to be 21, which puts it in line with sort of alcohol handling. But that isn't in any other regulations that I could find. That's restricted. So that seems unique to air marched. And the question is whether to, to change it or keep it. I'm happy to be corrected if others know of other municipalities. No, I don't. Sorry, no, I'm here. I'm going between screens. No, I don't. Do you. Do. There do like Cumberland farms and speed ways and all of those higher. Employees under 21 to. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. It just seems like. A job that has a lot going on. Including robberies and selling gasoline and. I don't know a lot happening there. So it's, it's not unusual to have a 16, 17 year old or whatever. Manning the cash register there. This is. Is there any thought that that's a problem that there are these young kids. And. Young employees. Do any worse of a job than the 21 pluses. I looked up to find if, if there was any, you know, rationale or, you know, trying to understand where this came from. And if there are others that have it, et cetera. And I couldn't find anything. I couldn't find any evidence that people are concerned about it. And again, you know, I'm just searching. So maybe I didn't get all the right search terms, but it does not seem. To be something that people have reported on or studied and found to be problematic. And my question about it is enforcement. So Meredith, when the tobacco compliance officers go into these stores in Amherst following our regulations, are they checking to see if people were employed? They're handling tobacco are over 21. No, right. I don't think we have the authority to ask them for their ID. I wouldn't think. Yeah. So I think that's telling us a lot. If we can't regulate, it's a silly thing to have on the books. Yeah. So I think that sort of question. Is. Yeah, I think. We should remove that. And it seems. Evidence that that's not. Not something we should keep. I don't know. Is there anything else in that? I like the tobacco handlers quiz. I think that's great. A little education. I keep that on. Yeah, I guess. How do you think see that as a benefit, Meredith? Because we had a discussion and we were thinking it was also hard to enforce and with the turnover of employees. And is it something that gets checked when you go and inspect? You know, maybe at the time of renewal, you ask for a proof of the current. Point of sale staff, the, you know, the clerks. That they took this quiz and passed it. So you like the idea of making. You know, does North Hampton have in it or other towns have an education? Yeah, there's a great one. There's a good one in the Berkshires, Jim Willis, who is tri county. Has a mandatory training. That sales clerks have to attend. In North Hampton, we have a sign off, but it's for the business owner that they have. They have to read it. They have to read it. They have to read it. They have to read it. They have to read the major. Points of a regulation and include. Included in the sign off and they have to read it and initial it and also initial that they. Have read the regulation and they hand this information. Down to their clerks, but. Yeah, I think we have that. Yeah. And our regulation that, that, that, that the. The regulations and also. I think it says something about, you know, passing it along to the employees. Ensuring that the employees know this as well. Well, maybe we'll take that into reconsideration. It's going to hear from the person in charge of inspections. I think it would be great to talk about rolling papers and wraps. I think that's the next one. Because that's, that's about 15 minutes. So maybe we'll get on to that. I guess that's a confusing area. We. We, what do we have their, their issues? We have definitions for blunt reps. And a ban on blunt wraps. We don't have a definition for rolling papers. We didn't. And. We had a ban on, on the sale of rolling papers with its own little. Finds, you know, violation scheme of 25 dollars or something for a penalty. And. The sample. Point set about flavor enhancers included. Ludes. Rolling papers. And. But it doesn't specifically talk about. Banning non-flavored rolling papers. So. Um, Misha had, you had a good. Yeah. I think that would be great. Yeah. I think that would be great. Yeah. I think that would be great. Yeah. So we, I had broken it up into a few different questions. Cause there's a lot of interrelated, but. But there's, there's a lot of sub questions within this. So the first question I had identified was. Do we want to keep prohibited sale of rolling papers to minors? Cause that's unique to ours. I mean, other municipalities might have it, but the state does not. So we have that it's illegal to sell rolling papers to person under 21. And as. As Maureen just said, that there's a fine structure. The state model. Does not. Um, and adds a definition. Of rolling of sheets, rolls, tubes, cones, wraps or leaves. That do not contain tobacco. And so the pros of keeping it in that I had identified where it's just a clear and strong deterrent against sales of tobacco related products to minors. Um, and the cons of keeping it in where that. Vendors and manufacturers make the case that this is used primarily for marijuana, not tobacco. And so we're restricting something. That's not only for tobacco. It's not in line with the state regulations and that we could, if we wanted to ban flavored papers only and not all rolling papers. Um, and so maybe I'll stop there rather than go on to the next part, which is around the flavored. See if anybody has any opinions. I believe the state law does prohibit the sale of rolling papers to someone under age. Um, it's not in our template, but there's a state law that prohibits it. Oh. And what the way. What our template says is we define rolling papers as sheets, rolls, tubes, cones, wraps or leaves that do not contain tobacco, which are used for rolling cigarettes, which are used for rolling paper. Um, which are used for rolling papers, either by hand or with a roll your own machine. So if you add this definition. Um, it would permit banning flavored non tobacco, non nicotine wraps such as flavored hemp wraps and also flavored rolling papers. So this would this, and I put it in the, um, if you put this definition in, you would be covering both hemp wraps and rolling papers. Um, that are flavored. And the state already. The state. And non flavored rolling papers to minors. I believe so. That's what I'm looking up right now. Um, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. The conversation for us. Yeah. There's no, um, Underage use like it's not like it's legal for an, uh, someone underage to legally use marijuana, you know, so the fact that it's also used for marijuana doesn't seem to give it. Um, I don't know that. Making it available. In either tobacco or marijuana. So that's where the flavor and non-flavor issue comes in. Like, because flavored tobacco products have been banned completely to sale to anybody. Right. And so if you have a flavor wrap, could be considered flavor enhanced. Right. So you could construct a regulation where it's okay to sell unflavored things for the argument that you just made, Maureen, but not flavored things would be one way to go. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I was actually trying to argue that we should keep the regulation, not, you know, the age restriction on rolling papers because there's no legal use for under 21 people to be using those. Right. But yeah. So there's an age limit on rolling papers, but you're, but we, you could conceivably ban flavored wraps. Entirely. Which we don't. Yeah. It's chapter 270 section six, a, a person who sells rolling papers to a person under 21. She'll be punished by a fine of $25 for the first, 50 for the second and 100 for the third. Right. All right. So, so it goes. And I think the idea of banning the. Using that definition for a. Rolling paper. In. As well with a. So, so basically go. So. I'm twisting my, myself around. I guess basically. All of those non-flavored things be included. In rolling papers that are under that state law with its own little. Finding structure. Sorry. Yeah, like unflavored hemp and unflavored. If that exists. Unflavored, whatever other kind of material. Yeah. To selling them to someone under 21. Yes. Yeah. And then the flavored ones come under. Flavor enhancers. Correct. Right. Okay. But they're all, they're all, so those are banned and the rolling papers are age restricted. Is what. And the flavor of rolling papers would also be banned. Right. Exactly. Anything flavor. To all people or to minors. To all people. And that is, that is the state. That's not a state law. Yes. Cause they're flavor enhancers. And the way it's currently worded in our. Regulations, it says, you know, that. Tobacco flavor enhancers are not allowed. Right. But it doesn't specify. It doesn't have that clarifying sentence that specifies that this includes. Flavored. Wraps. Right. There's that additional. In the definition somewhere, but I don't remember. I mean. I'm reading from our legs under tobacco product flavor enhancer. Any product design, manufacturer, produce, marketed or sold to produce a characterizing flavor when added to any tobacco product. And then there's this extra sentence that I saw somewhere that says, this includes flavored. But it doesn't. I think that's an important thing to put in. Because otherwise it's not crystal clear. And those things I just want to add those things are for sale. In Amherst currently. Those flavored wraps. And more. We're not, we're not, we're not respecting them at the moment. And it's interesting because these are not necessarily. Through. Retail outlets that have. Tobacco licenses. Or tobacco permits, sales permits. So it's just in other types of businesses. And that would be continued to be allowed. Because that's about the tobacco license. The question is the house. Yeah. Enforcement. I mean, I think Cheryl's probably more quick to answer this, but it, you know, coming from my commissioner hat in North Hampton. If we see it and because, you know, if they don't have a tobacco permit, we still enforce it saying that under. The tobacco regulation, it's not allowed. So I don't think it has to do with the permit. Yeah. What comes into play is, you know, that, that permit is the carrot. Like you can only do so much until you, you know, if they continue to violate, then you revoke the permit or you suspend the permit. We don't have that leverage. But you can certainly find them. Is that not correct, Cheryl? No, that's, that's correct. And that would be under the state penalty system, right? I mean that. The flavor enhancers. Yeah. The flavor it is under your bag. Enhancers. I don't. Are they. I thought I had understood that this was not a decision for us. That the state banned. Flavored. They did. And so we don't get a call on this as it were. It's already been decided at a state level. The question is. Just. So I actually, can I ask a question about that? Because this is my understanding, which may be completely off, but I think it's very clear that any kind of. Flavored tobacco is banned across the country. And so. And so we don't get a call on this as it were. It's already been decided at a state level. That the flavor. Flavored tobacco is banned across the board and anything that you would add like a sub, like a tincture or something to flavor tobacco is banned. But the wraps you could argue that they are also under that, but I think that it's, it's not being enforced in that way because it's not. It's a separate piece. It's not infused in the tobacco. It's something that's outside it. And so I'm just saying that because these things are currently for sale now and people think it's okay. That it's something that has to be tightened up and clarified in the language because currently those things are on the shelves and people don't think that it's not okay to sell them. So it's an interpretation of the laws. It's written as I see it, right? Does that make sense, Cheryl? What I'm saying. Yeah. And the definition that that we're proposing for rolling papers include sheets, rolls, tubes, cones, wraps or leaves that do not contain tobacco. So it's pretty clear. It includes wraps. Right. And would that be specific to Amherst then or anyone who adopts this language? Anyone who adopts this language. So it is possible to have a town that does not. Interpret the flavors to include wraps. If they're flavored wraps, it's hard to make an argument that they're not. Flavor enhancers. Yeah. A regular world temp wrap that's not flavored. Wouldn't be a flavor enhancer. If you want to ban those unflavored ones, that's a different situation. Those would seem to fall under the unflavored rolling paper. Thing from the state, but I don't. Well, that you can't sell any of them to anyone under 21. Right. So that would be age restricted, but flavored is not allowed to anyone. And not in any type of retail establishment. Correct. So that in any type of retail establishment. So just to give you an example and Meredith, you will remember this that we had with our last round of tobacco compliance checks, we had one store that currently does not have a tobacco permit because they're not selling any tobacco products, but they don't have a tobacco license permit. So they don't have a tobacco license permit, but they have flavored wraps on the shelves. And the tobacco compliance officer. The young person sold some of those. So that was, you know, that was something we had to figure out how to manage because it was. They didn't have a tobacco sales permit. They had this product on the shelves that really is covered on these regulations and isn't supposed to be on the shelves, but we didn't find them. We just sort of had a conversation with them about it. But, but the thing was the conversation was about selling it to a young person. It wasn't about, you shouldn't be selling these at all. That's not the conversation that I had with the person, the owner of the store. Yeah. And I can see the, the argument being made by say a cannabis store, that these are not tobacco rolling papers, that these are cannabis flavored. Right. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. Can't we sell them to people who are over 21? Cause they could use it for their cannabis. They can smoke cannabis if they're over 21 with this product. Right. That's the argument that people could. Yeah. And what a lot of people do will say that they allow them for sale in marijuana licensed establishments. Right. Hmm. And to me that feels a little unjust. But I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know if you and this store isn't. So they're going to lose their business to those others. Like because they've got a tobacco permit. Or because they don't have a cannabis. They're not a cannabis store. They can't sell them. Yeah. I mean, I, you know, I mean, I think. I think the, the, the, we don't have a choice about this law. That's from the state about flavor enhancers for tobacco. So I don't know. I don't know if it comes with someone without the tobacco. Permit. And just as a store and they're selling them, whatever. So I'm a little confused. I'm sorry. I just. Just get so confused. I know. So you can be a seven 11. Not have any tobacco in there, but can sell non-flavored rolling papers. They can sell non-flavored rolling papers as long as you're not selling them to someone under 21 correct. But a seven 11 does sell tobacco. Right. Okay. That was a bad. Yeah. Mo's shop. Mo's convenience store who sells no tobacco. They do sell unflavored rolling papers. That's perfectly acceptable. They can't sell flavored rolling papers because that's against the state law. That's how I would interpret it. Yes. So we are only restricting tobacco. Permitted. Venues from. Flavored. Paper. From non. Yeah. From. One more time. No, I've gotten myself confused. I'm not sure what I'm doing. Um, yes, we are, we, we are only restricting. Flavored. Oh God, is it flavored or unflavored? Which is restricted by the age. Non-flavored. Non-flavored. Non-flavored. Okay. So we are only restricting flavored sales. Um, in tobacco. Permitted venues, but non tobacco permitted venues could. No, I think Meredith just said the opposite, right? Didn't you? That if you're a convenience store, not selling tobacco, you can sell unflavored rolling papers to people over the age of 21, you can't sell flavored wraps because they're illegal. Correct. That's what you just said, right, Meredith? Correct. So, but this again points to the issue that you just raised, Risha, about how you can sell those things in a cannabis store, those flavored wraps, but you can't sell them. I mean, is anybody looking? I don't, I don't know actually. It's a good question. But. Does anybody know are these things for sale in cannabis stores, flavored hemp wraps? Does it matter? I don't, I don't know. So. You know, and of course we're getting into the meat of this and it's 632 and we're. So. I think there's a little confusion around. I mean, I think to follow the law, we have to say that the flavor wraps our band and their band everywhere and how we interpret that and how we enforce it is going to be a question. And there's a question, you know, they're, they're banned according to the state. And I don't know whether there's an exemption in the cannabis law. There may be an exemption in the cannabis law that permits them to be sold in licensed establishments. I can look into that. Okay. But if there isn't, then they can't be sold. It's like a head shop kind of place. It's sure they should not be allowed, right? I mean, it's not, it doesn't have any license. Well, but a head shop now is legal because marijuana accessories are legal. Right. But, but is a, as a flavor wrap legal in, if it's. No, yeah. Right. So that doesn't give them that permission. All right. I think it's helpful. Right. I think it's hard to enforce. I just want to add, you have your inspectors that are in other stores. That don't sell tobacco. And in North Hampton, we train our inspectors to look for these types of items and report back to us. So. You have another tool. Okay. Sposal. Yeah. Thanks, Meredith. That's helpful. So. I think. We probably should wrap this up so to speak. Um, And, and save this ownership and density for another discussion. But I really appreciate both Cheryl and Meredith input on this. I think it helped us. Hash some of this stuff out and, um, We'll get down to the nitty gritty again soon. Thank you both for joining really helpful. Sure. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I might just hang out and listen in the background. Your agenda looked interesting to me. Oh, sure. Of course. Um, so with. No further ado, we have a new business and it's a. A well permit involving a geos. I don't know. I don't know. Actually, it's actually a test drill for geothermal system. That is. Maybe proposed. So let's. Let's invite our. I don't know who needs to, who's here to speak to that. I know the inspectors and also the, um, Representative from Emerson college. Yeah, we have the project engineer Chris Tate. And then our two inspectors. Yeah. Sorry. I kind of lost some audio there when you promoted me. So then quite here where you said, but. I'm a capital project manager at Amherst college. And I'm working on our decarbonization effort. With the goal of decarbonizing the campus by the year 2030. And so I'll turn it back over to you. Sorry. I didn't mean to hijack the meeting. Um, thank you. I guess I'll turn it over to Ed, who can explain what he's learned about the project and, and what his current thoughts are. Sure. Thank you. Um, so. Chris has been very helpful and, you know, getting applications in quickly and in a timely way. Um, and getting this up to speed on this project. Um, these two boreholes would inform the larger project that's coming hopefully in another year. Um, so this would be, this is a preliminary to the presentation. Um, in a year of the entire field. Um, and how that would tie in to the whole geothermal project, which Chris knows much more about than I can begin to. Uh, Uh, I'm going to start with Susan and I, Susan Malone, um, health inspector who, um, going forward, I'll, I'll just say that, um, with the transitions that I've been going through in the inspections office, Susan will be becoming the principal inspector that will be your liaison to well permits. It was much appreciated and really helpful to get the guidelines that really will allow most, a desk approved in the inspections department. And if there are tricky ones, we'll bring them to you. But the guidelines that you set did screen this project out because of depth. It's just two boreholes at this point, but they're going, I think, 850 feet or so. And are part of a larger project that has many holes of that depth. Or, you know, Chris can tell us, will the depth be affected by the results or what not? So I'd like to defer to Chris. Yeah, thank you, Ed, I appreciate it. So as Ed said, we're just proposing two closed loop geothermal wells at this point. These would be six inch bores, 850 feet deep. We put an inch and a half HDPE pipe down with a U-bend at the bottom forming the loop. And those, one of the bores, we're gonna run a hydraulic conductivity test to kind of see what sort of thermal properties we're getting through the grout. The other one, it's just gonna, well, they're both just gonna sit there until they're incorporated into a larger bore field, which is still under design. And some of the information we get from these test bores will inform the design of that larger field. Some of the things we're looking to find out about is the amount of overburden, the amount of soil that we have to drill through and put casings into before we hit the rock. Kind of how easy it is to drill through the rock. You know, how much water we encounter during the drilling. So all of these things will really help us plan for kind of the mobilization and the logistics of installing more wells in the future, as well as the hydraulic conductivity information, which will help, you know, I think we're gonna try to get as many bores as we can in that parking lot, but the hydraulic information will just help us style in the model as well. So I know Aaron Jock reviewed the locations and determined that they were, you know, they were outside of any wetland jurisdictional areas. She had a couple of extra comments about putting salt sacks in downgradient catch basins and putting, you know, we'll put some straw waddles on the downgradient areas of the temporary fence. We're gonna fence off these two areas of work. And that's really about it. Our drilling contractor is skillings and sons. I don't know much about drilling, but they told me what they were gonna do. I wrote that down in the letter that you may have read. So they're talking about using a diverter, which actually takes, so instead of digging like a pit in the ground and having all the water fall into the pit, there's actually a diverter, which hooks up to the top of the casing and the water goes directly into the tank, the weir tank. And then there's a secondary rack tank that's connected to the weir tank. Because we're doing two bores, we're gonna have that kind of set up on the first bore and there's gonna be another weir tank ready to go on the second location. But if they find out they're encountering more water than they think, they can then bring that other weir tank over. So what they're telling me is there really won't be any water hitting the pavement. It's all gonna go through the diverter into the tanks. And then when everything's done, they'll come and back out the tanks and dispose of the cuttings and the spoils and any water that we encounter offsite. So that's the goal. Hopefully it goes that smoothly. And, but however it goes, it'll inform us for the larger project, which we think we would start in the spring of 25. So probably in about a year from now would be the hope. And, you know, the information we gather from these two test bores is definitely going to inform a lot of that project design for us. Okay, thanks. I'm gonna ask Tim if he had any thoughts about the project, he knows more about water and groundwater and things like that. So then the rest of us. This is a quick question for Chris, you know. How far is the closest wetland from the maybe southern boring area? From the wells that are proposed? Yeah, the southern one, whatever is the southern most one. I think you have two board points, right? Yeah, I'd say the closest wetland is about 150 to 200 feet. 50 to 200 feet, I'm not sure exactly. I know it's farther than 100 feet because we're not in any jurisdictional area. So it's about, if I had to estimate, I'd say 150 to 200 feet. You can see on that on the, I don't know if you have a copy of the logistics plan, but the wooded area to the east, to the right-hand side of the page, those are jurisdictional areas there. Yeah, any impact is going to be only during the construction, but you have some sort of a practices which are going to mitigate any runoff, right? That's correct. Yeah, we have a diverter on the casing. We have an 18,000 gallon weir tank. We have a 20,000 gallon frack tank. We have straw waddles all along the fence line on the down gradient side, you know, between the borehole and the wetlands. And then we'll also put silk sacks in the catch basins that are on the down gradient side, adjacent to the wetlands. Those catch basins drain into a detention basin, which you can actually see in the bottom right-hand corner of the logistics plan. And then from there, they discharge to the wetlands. So there's quite a few safeguards in between any water re-encounter and the wetlands. What is discharged into the wetlands? I'm sorry, I didn't get it. Sorry. What is being discharged into the wetlands? Nothing, I hope. Nothing, okay. Maybe I misheard. One other question is the closed loop system you talk about. You have two different points and they are not connected in any way. These are just monitoring wells, right? And your closed loop is coming. Where is the loop coming? I'm just curious. That would be part of the larger overfield that I talked about in 2025. So it's coming in the future. This is just a one pipeline, which is not circulating with two pipes in one location, okay. Nothing is gonna circulate through this for a year. Is it going in as a you now, though, for the future? Yes, so we will use it in the field in the future. But we're gonna drill the hole. We'll put the U-Bend down the hole. We'll ground it up. So there'll be the two pigtails sticking up out of the four feet down, four feet under the grade of the existing parking lot. We'll be the two pigtails sticking up. And then we're gonna put a manhole cover over it for now so we can go back and connect to it later when we put in the future system. So these will be inoperable. They'll just be in situ for a year. And you'll be measuring. We don't wanna waste them though. I mean, we could do a test drill and get all the information and abandon it, but that would be a big waste of money. So we wanna make sure that we can use these, this bore in the future when we're ready to hook it up to all the other ones. Sure. And you mentioned that you'll be measuring some of the thermal properties, right? Hydrothermal properties. And how is it going to be measured? I'm not an expert, but what I know is they'll put the grout in and then they need to wait five days for the grout to set up and dry and also dissipate any of the heat that it gives off in the curing process or whatever grout does. And then they'll run, they'll hook up a machine and I'm sorry, I'm not an expert. They hook up a machine and they'll circulate water through the machine and somehow they'll measure the temperature of the water or something and determine the thermal. I think what they're trying to figure out is how quickly the heat from the ground goes through the grout into the liquid inside the U-band, inside the pipes. I think that's what they're trying to do. So that test takes about two days. So for those two days, we will be circulating water through this closed bore. And then after that, we won't be using it for a year. So no sensors which are going underground, okay? No. So one additional question. I know it is something you're designing in the future. Will it some sort of a get approved by the board for that final installation? It'll come back to, I mean, this is just a preliminary. I would say it's like a monitoring well, you know. So just to test the project. Right, I'm before you because we're it's seeding your 750 foot depth requirement. In the future, I'm gonna be it's seeding your five bore number requirement and your 750 foot depth requirement. So you will definitely see me next year as well. Yeah. Yeah, the How many wells are anticipated? More than a hundred and less than 150, I guess. I don't know yet. I mean, that's part of what we need to figure out. At the same location? Yep, yep. So we're targeting that parking lot. Those, some of those bores will be within the, you know, the hundred foot buffer to the wetland. So we'll be going through wetlands permitting as well for that when the time comes. And we've actually, we submitted a abbreviated notice of resource area to delineation to the conservation commission, I think last week to have them review the wetland limits and the limits of bank for a fearing brook, which discharges out from under that parking lot. So that's another part of our design is kind of walking in where those wetlands are so we can, you know, design around them. So that's another process that we're going through with the town as well. And that'll get all wrapped into the larger project. Now, I guess I was under the impression at least in the last couple of years that the, when they're large fields of geothermal wells that the state also is involved in permitting. Is that, I'm making wrong about that. Yeah. Well, the state regulations that Ed sent along with your local regulations, we've heard from the, from our contact at Mass DEP that they, I don't know what the right word is, but two years later in 2016, they said, okay, you don't need UIC, which I think stands for underground injection control registration for closed loop geothermal bores, you know, because they're not open, they don't exchange fluid with groundwater, those sorts of things. But that, you know, localities are still certainly within their rights to, you know, have jurisdiction over that process like we do in the town of Amherst. So. Yeah, I guess when I looked at the state regulations a few years ago, it seemed to me that if it was a certain number, like beyond a certain number, even with the closed loop that there was the state needed, there was a state permit needed, but that could have changed in- It could have, but I will also, I'll take a deeper dive into it. I'm not quite at that point in the project of doing that permitting. So we're, we're still trying to get the initial data here. No, it's an interesting project. Will you be collecting any other information on runoff or water quality when you're doing the testing? No, we are, we are interested though in how much water we're producing when we do this drilling. Cause obviously the more water that comes out of the hole, the worse it is for us. So that's really gonna inform us as to the constructability of this thing. So maybe one last question. I'm just curious about this large scale development in the future, which having like a hundred belts closed loop. What will be the density of those belts? When I say density, it is like, if you have a hundred or 150 wells in a parking lot, how close are they going to be, you know? So the density that we're looking at is a function of how close can they be without clashing with each other, right? So as you're drilling down, you hope they're both, they're all gonna go straight down, but sometimes they wander and then they cross and then you move and that well is no good. So we're told that if we do like a 20 foot spacing, the 20 foot grid at 850 feet deep, that the likelihood of those kinds of clashes is low. I think there will be clashes, but not so many. So that's kind of, that's the guiding principle to density for the wells. More than thermal conductivity concerns between wells or something like that. So it said it's probably a dense installation with hundred wells in that location, you know? Even if you are 20, 25 feet apart, you know? What will happen to the land in between those wells? Is it going to be paved? On the surface? Yeah. Yeah, it's gonna remain a parking lot. So we'll just repave. It remains a parking lot, okay. Yeah, it started a parking lot, it'll remain a parking lot when we're done. We'll just repave it. That's one of the reasons why we're looking at that area. And it's one of the higher elevation areas, right? When I was looking at somewhere around that parking lot, you have a little bit higher elevation and then that dips off as you go eastward. Is that right? That's right. Yep, it's on a slope. Yeah. But our whole campus is on a slope. We don't have any flat. Except for under the soccer fields, I guess, it's kind of flat, but probably because we made it flat at some point. Yeah, in my opinion, I think I don't have a problem with the two bore wells, but we have to revisit the potential implication of the density and the large installations in the future. Yes, as Chris said, he'll be back. So, but thanks, that was helpful. Are there any other questions from folks? Yeah, I don't have any other questions. Misha, I don't see. She's taking her head, no. Okay. Forget Maureen can't see me, no. No, I guess, well, it's just, I just have a view that I should change, but I can't seem to figure that out. So do we have a motion to approve the wells at, what is it, 151 College Street? Yeah, I can make a motion to approve the well construction permit in 151 College Street, central energy plant of Amherst College. And I can second. Any other discussion? So we take a vote, Risha. Yes. Now that I can see you and Tim. Hi. Maureen, hi. So that motion's approved. Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you. Thanks, Chris. We'll see you next year. Okay. Take care. Take care. All right. So our next item on the agenda is the director's report. Correct? Yes. Okay. So a quick respiratory illness update. I'll have to say that our COVID prevalence, per the wastewater levels is not as low as I thought it would be by this time. So it's really been a bit of a stubborn respiratory illness season. This is not diagnostic, but it does give us a little bit of a sense of how much virus is out there. So it's still, it's under a million gene copy equivalents per liter, which is just shy of what's considered substantial infection, but it's a little higher than it was earlier. And it's not like bottom, if you look at our graph, which we post to the website, it's not as this really low level yet, but it is coming down. Hospitalizations are trending down. We're coming out of this respiratory illness season. So hoping to see it continue to project downward from here on in. I think the big news in the COVID world is the CDC did officially change their isolation guidance, which I'm sure you're all aware of, suspending the requirement that people stay home for five days, regardless of how they're feeling. And instead treating COVID like any other respiratory illness, if you're fever free without medication for more than 24 hours and your symptoms are resolving and you're feeling all right, you can go back to work, wearing a mask is best practice. So we're updating all of our info to make sure that people know that we still have a lot of COVID tests on hand. The state had a lot that they were able to distribute just in the last month or so, they have an expiration date of March 25th. So we've been handing them out to get them into people's hands because they're not gonna be good for much longer. So if anybody needs COVID tests that they wanna use in the next week or so, come on down, we have lots still. And we distributed them to multiple community organizations who were getting them out into the community as well, apartment complexes, Craig's Doors, WIC, Survival Center, all of those places. So just trying to get them out for folks because they are expensive. And there is still some value, I think, for people to be able to test for COVID, especially if they share space with people who have underlying medical conditions or older folks, people who might be more vulnerable to infection. So that's kind of the respiratory illness update. We launched the health department did in conjunction with the recreation department, something that we're calling the kindness campaign. I think I'd mentioned to you all before that we wanted to have more of a focus in our work around mental wellness just in light of everything that's been happening in the world around us, coming out of COVID, recognizing the impact of social media on young people's mental health and wellbeing and wanting to sort of elevate the importance of mental health and wellbeing being an important part of public health. So we had a plan to do some mental wellness workshops and in one of those workshops, we had a conversation with the facilitator about how being kind, being both the giver and receiver of kindness is actually good for one's wellbeing and their feelings of wellbeing, their mental wellness, feeling of being part of a community, having people around you with whom you share good feelings. And so out of that conversation came this idea to launch a kindness campaign. So I have the button on, you can see the slogan for our campaign is be kind. It's good for your mind. And so we have these buttons that are here in the health department and in other buildings around the town. There's a website where people can upload photographs or themselves being kind to other people or ideas of how you can be kind just in your daily life. We haven't quite reached momentum with that just yet. I think we need to encourage more people to post upload photos and other ideas to the website. This campaign started on February 29th, which was leap of kindness day cause it was a leap year this year. And the BID, the Amherst Business Improvement District offered free parking on that day. I don't know how many people were aware of that, but it was just a nice way for the town to be kind to people who were shopping that day. So this goes on for two months. There are more mental wellness workshops that are happening. I'll be frank, they have not been so well attended so far. I think it's hard to get the word out about these kinds of things. Some of them are virtual, some of them are in the bank center. And we may do more of these things in the future more once we've had built more of a foundation, I think, for this kind of stuff. We're responding to what we see in terms of statistics about mental wellness, but we're not actually responding to people saying, hey, we want workshops. So maybe it's not meeting the need, but we're just experimenting to see what we can do with this in the future. And there'll be a community cleanup in April, April 27th will be kind of the conclusion to the Kindness Campaign, bringing people together to do some cleaning up around the town. So that's going on. I think we emailed you a poster. There's an updated one that has a QR code that takes you to the website, which we didn't send you, but I will send that out to everybody. So you have it. That's just for your own reference or to post around if you want to. Two more quick things. We submitted an application to the Public Health Associate Program, which is a CDC run program that requests applications from both recently graduated MPH students and host sites for it's a matching process. So they get these applicants and then I get these sites and they try to place folks who have just recently graduated with their degree at a site, public health department, local state or federal health entity. So, and it's a, they pay the person's salary for two years. So that person would be embedded with that organization and would be a full member of the team working on really substantive projects. So we wrote, I hope a compelling application to say that the town of Amherst would love to host one of these young people or new professionals, new or emerging professionals to help add to the public health workforce and for us to benefit too from having a new person that can help us do some more work because we don't have a big staff and we don't have a big budget. So this is a way to get additional people power to do our work. We'll find out, I think in the late summer whether we've been chosen and matched with somebody and then that person would start in October. So we're excited about that possibility. So fingers crossed that works out. And the last thing I guess I'll say, oh, I wanted to mention that I did send an email to everyone just this afternoon about this board of health members training that Massachusetts association of health boards. So the organization of which Cheryl Spara is the executive director. They offer these free trainings for board members. It's Saturday in Holyoke. So it's not a lot of notice and it's a full day but it covers everything from open meeting law to other issues that are relevant to people who sit on boards. So it's in your inboxes if you're interested to go and I completely understand if it's too short notice. It's free, it's covered through our affiliation with the public health excellence grant. It sounds like it could be really interesting. I think there's another one in April but it's farther away. But it's farther away, yeah. But all the information is in the email, yeah. I think there are a couple more but Holyoke is the local one for people in Western man. So, and then the last thing I'll just say because I think we'll be talking about this more is just this loophole in the hemp slash cannabis regulations that is allowing for the proliferation of these products that have Delta 8 or Delta 9, THC and them. So they're synthetic, we've talked about this a little bit, synthetic hemp derived products which are technically legal because they're derived from hemp. You can have a paper trail that says this product which actually does have a significant amount of THC in it and has psychoactive properties is not cannabis or marijuana but is actually hemp derived. Now we know that there's all the same plant it just has to do with how much THC is in the actual plant but it's complicated that these products are on the market available to people regardless of their age in all kinds of shops. I don't know how many of them are out there in Amherst we're starting to look into this but it's on the town's radar. The Bureau of Licensed Commissioners is also looking at this and thinking about what role the town should play in regulating these products. The state has acknowledged that this is a loophole and nobody expected companies to be making these kinds of things but they're making good money on them and that's why it continues to happen. And I think it's on the governor's radar. There's talk, it's on Joe Cumberford's radar and there's talk about the state putting in some kind of regulation to deal with this because currently it's just left up to the local boards of health to monitor this when we don't really have an enforcement mechanism we're not all that aware of this is all new to many of us. So it's just, and I'm sure Meredith has been talking about it with her constituents we talked about it on the PVTC meeting last month. It's an emerging issue with some significant public health implications. So we'll be following up on that more and I'm sure it's gonna show up on our agenda one of these days. So preview of coming attractions. Well, yeah, I guess some towns locally have put regulations in like Belcher Town and whether the state will get ahead of this which would be wonderful that would be good. Otherwise I think the towns probably need to respond. Yeah, that's my hope at this point is that the state will come up with something it does, there was a promise made that in the next couple of months there would be some word from the state about how they might be involved in regulating these products so it's not just left to the locals. And I feel like that's the wise thing to do right now is to wait and see what the state will say but to keep it on our radar and to know that is something that we're that's important that we need to pay attention to. That's good to know. Yeah. Kiko, I had a question on the mental health kindness thing. I mean, you talked about Amherst Wreck being the partner there. Is there something happening with the schools? Well, we are promoting the mental wellness workshops through the schools to the best of our ability. I'm working closely with the outreach coordinator for the Wreck department and she has a lot of connections to the schools obviously and work closely with them. So we're trying to build those bridges. I think we're also going to plan some mental wellness workshops specifically for youth in May. So technically outside of the timeframe of the kindness campaign but just trying to keep the work going and that we will work really closely with the schools on and be able to involve young people also in designing and promoting those workshops. So that I think we'll have more. And I'm open to suggestions because I'm still working on my relationship with the schools and don't have strong connections yet with people. So if you have thoughts or ideas, I welcome them. I mean, just that this is an issue that is top of mind for parents and students. So it makes sense to make those links. Right. And there will be one of our counselors, Heather Hallelord is doing a presentation I think at the end of April which is really going to be geared towards parents. I think that she hasn't given us her final topic yet but that was the goal that it would be dealing geared towards parents of young people and around mental health challenges that young folks might be facing. So that'll be the last workshop in the series at the end of April. Great, yeah. I would suggest going to a school council meeting but they have their own issues right now that they're culminating their agenda. Right, exactly, yeah. So we can look for other ways to get the word out. Any connection with the school nurses or anything like that? Yeah, I have, Olivia does have connections with the school nurses, our public health nurse, Olivia through the Vaccines for Children program and she connects with them pretty regularly about young people who need vaccines and I've met with them but they are so busy so it's just hard for them to carve out time. Yeah, and then you get this, you know the psychologist or the counselors or whatever but the other counselors just pull out. I think it would be good to go over and meet with people again because I have gone over but it's been several months and now I've been in the job for a while it'd be a good opportunity to revisit that I think. Talk to people again. It's hard to get the attention of people for these kind of workshops and things I think. Yeah, I think it is in general and I think the schools have so much on their plates with budget concerns and staffing concerns and everything else it's tough so it doesn't feel high priority. But I do know that for instance the fifth graders are having their health class right now which just started this week that focuses on relationships and kindness and friendship and that kind of stuff. So there's some obvious tie-ins if... Yeah, right. Yeah, that's good to know. Thank you, that's nice. Okay, that's it for me. And any topics not anticipated by the chair? I don't think so. The next Board of Health meeting will be on April 11th at 5.30. Do we have a motion to adjourn? I can make a motion to adjourn today's meeting. Second. And you vote. Risha. Okay. Tim. Aye. Lorraine. Aye. Okay. I will not be at the next meeting on the 11th. So I will be actually in the air I think at the time, but... So I won't be able to attend. So Tim, you're up. All right, thank you. Thank you everybody. Thanks everyone. Bye. Have a good evening.