ORDER-2018-41 : Amending Melrose Revised Ordinances, Chapter 177: Peace and Good Order, Section 177-2 as set forth herein

Transcript (~40 min @ 1:18:18)

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▶ 1:18:15 Speaker 1: committee on discussion seeing none all in favor aye all opposed be recommended

▶ 1:18:24 Francis X. Wright Jr.: to the full board last order is order 2018-41 amending Melrose revised ordinances chapter 177 peace and good orders section 177-2 as set forth herein sponsored by President Zwirko. Motion to suspend the rules that the chief might

▶ 1:18:43 Francis X. Wright Jr.: come forward. Second. We have a motion to suspend the rules by Alderman Mortimer, seconded by President Zwirko. All in favor? Aye. Rules are suspended. Chief could you

▶ 1:19:02 Michael P. Zwirko: come forward? Thank you. Mr. President. Thank you Mr. Chairman. So this well before it before I explain a little bit behind this I just wanted to say thank not only for um chief lyle being here this evening but also for the city solicitor i've been working with both of them over the past couple of weeks and months to kind of just really level set this ordinance and see what's feasible and what's not i also wanted to thank my fellow aldermen who assisted in this process as well and when i brought it forward it certainly wasn't fully matured and I appreciate the comments from when this order was first introduced and that's helping to strengthen this order so thank you for that quite simply currently as we all know marijuana had first originally been decriminalized then it was legalized for medical use and it is now fully legal for recreational use of which later this year there will be recreational sales in some communities in the Commonwealth so my concern was was that the law that was passed and then the provisions that were codified by the Cannabis Control Commission didn't really address and also the Massachusetts legislature I apologize didn't really address kind of a belt and suspenders approach that communities can take for the public consumption of marijuana marijuana obviously can be consumed in many ways and you know currently you can't in the city of Melrose you can't you know drink a open container of liquor and such so I thought that kind of marrying the idea of essentially these controlled substances to be not consumed in public way and attached to the order is some language so that's essentially what this order is attempting to do and I'm hopeful with the discussion tonight we can successfully move this forward to the full board and implement this so I'm happy to to yield and let's see what our guests have to say as well as other members of the board so thank you mr. chairman thank you mr. president chief

▶ 1:21:12 Francis X. Wright Jr.: do you have any opening comments you'd like to make there is a distinction

▶ 1:21:16 Speaker 6: between medical marijuana and recreational someone can consume medical marijuana in public and then recreational no you cannot you cannot that's the big distinction so i'm available for questions relative to scenarios whatever you wish i do sit on the cannabis control committee for the mass chiefs on the direction of chief carmichael from walpole if i don't have an answer for you I certainly will get an answer for you thank you any questions all the

▶ 1:21:49 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: milliport Garabedian Thank You presidents Berko and chief Lyle for continuing this conversation one thing that we talked about when this first came before us was whether or not it made sense to include in our local ordinance and enforcement provision and I had taken a look at some of the other cities and towns in our region which do direct you know law enforcement to be able to seize product or to issue fines i'm not sure whether that is contemplated here it didn't look like that had been added yet to our the order that's before us but i'd be interested in your thoughts about whether you think that's a good practice having talked to colleagues in other places and knowing the own your own capacity certainly some type of a sanction absolutely

▶ 1:22:27 Speaker 6: that i would support i think there's levels of sanctions obviously a warning and then take steps we follow our city ordinances that way that's the way we issue uh violations for city ordinances and that's i think the appropriate way to do it okay excuse me to do it thank you that's very

▶ 1:22:48 Speaker 5: helpful okay i'll say the element um i think so at this time thank you alderman Boisselle well it

▶ 1:22:51 Robert A. Boisselle: was interesting when the chief was talking distinct between medical marijuana and recreational marijuana the article states here just consumes marijuana should we be distinguishing that

▶ 1:23:06 Speaker 6: between the two at this point if someone has a medical marijuana card a valid card and they're consuming marijuana in public by all means so if an officer sees somebody consuming marijuana in public the first thing is do you have a medical marijuana card during a threshold inquiry if they don't obviously they get on a different road and i would think that a city ordinance violation would be in order okay so seize the product dump the product destroy the product issue a citation

▶ 1:23:33 Robert A. Boisselle: so this ruling here should be adjusted to reflect that i would think there should be a yes clearly

▶ 1:23:38 Robert A. Boisselle: for a distinction also the next point of view is the section here no person shall smoke ingest or otherwise use if someone's sitting in a park eating a muffin how do you know someone is ingesting marijuana in the food because that's recreational products uh quite a bit of it is ingesting uh into the food system and so forth i mean there is various ways for intake with that

▶ 1:24:02 Speaker 6: i went to several facilities with the city solicitor another other a number of other city officials and and i was surprised at the different uh products for marijuana so i i haven't seen a muffin yet but you know what i won't say no but um there are certainly uh gummy bears and all sorts of different products out there for it but could you do any sort of

▶ 1:24:28 Robert A. Boisselle: enforcement against the ingest i can see the smoking aspect of having a police canine standing

▶ 1:24:38 Robert A. Boisselle: next to me and then that dog gets the sense so are we recommending a full fleet of a canine uh

▶ 1:24:43 Speaker 6: no i don't think we are no i don't i think we have more important things to worry about than that

▶ 1:24:47 Robert A. Boisselle: yes okay all right thank you very much thank you mr chairman thank you alderman anyone else

▶ 1:24:55 Monica C. Medeiros: thank you I'm just curious to see I know that at the last meeting I had my understanding was that the the Board of Health was looking into a similar type of ordinance especially more related to the smoking aspect and I see that president's work Oh had requested that information I'm wondering if anybody had gotten back to you. I don't see that I've been through three different views here on IQ M2 I don't see any response

▶ 1:25:32 Speaker 1: Through the chair go thank thank you

▶ 1:25:37 Michael P. Zwirko: Thank You mr. Chairman to respond to that inquiry I did Reach out via email communication. I did not I did not hear back from the health director on this point. I would ask that I see city solicitor van Kampen here if he could kindly come before I don't know if you've heard otherwise or anything different I haven't seen anything on agendas about this so to answer your question no thank you mr.

▶ 1:26:03 Speaker 3: chairman I haven't had any conversation about the health director so and I do

▶ 1:26:06 Monica C. Medeiros: have a sort of a follow-up in regard to medical and smoking for in particular I I can't think of another medically used drug that if used in public could affect the person

▶ 1:26:24 Monica C. Medeiros: sitting next to me in the way that something that you smoke, medical marijuana would. So I kind of find it hard, this is a substance that can alter, you know, which is still federally

▶ 1:26:50 Monica C. Medeiros: illegal and which can alter cognitive skills, that it's okay to, even for medical use, use this in a way that could affect Alderman Forbes or whoever else might be sitting next to me at some point in time. Can you talk about the legality of that and is there a way that we can address that?

▶ 1:27:16 Speaker 6: I'll leave it to the attorney as far as an ordinance, but I see nothing more a problem if someone is out at a restaurant in Melrose Center and they're waiting in line to go in there because they're backed up and somebody comes out the door and starts consuming marijuana

▶ 1:27:35 Speaker 6: through a pipe or a marijuana cigarette with people standing around.

▶ 1:27:43 Monica C. Medeiros: would impact those folks yes it would so if are you telling me that if they were using medically and had a medical registration card you know it's still marijuana it's it's just it's labeled differently it's marijuana can I mean

▶ 1:27:56 Speaker 6: you know could a police officer have legal authority to they would go up and we call it a threshold inquiring that speak to that person do you have a medical marijuana card yes i do and the strongest action that an officer could say out of respect for some of the people standing here could you move to another area and you know take your

▶ 1:28:20 Speaker 6: medicine for that matter legally i don't think we have a leg to stand on as far as that

▶ 1:28:25 Monica C. Medeiros: so i so i guess some of the the questions that i had had for um this was this is a you know conversation outside of uh this realm but it was with uh maureen garapay from the health uh and you know looking at trying to include marijuana in the smoking regulations and to sort of prohibit this you know and from happening because i do think when there's something that can affect someone else other than the intended user that it's something that we should be able to address and i you know i think that alderman's worker was on the right track uh with this certainly and there are you know multiple aspects to this this issue but certainly you know i think he's attempting although he knows it may not be super enforceable to say you can't have this marijuana muffin in public but at the same time i think having an ordinance on the books that says you can't have this marijuana muffin in public may stop that from getting into the hands of unintended users in particular children and and others in the public world pets so

▶ 1:29:41 Speaker 6: i would say that in the private setting there's a lot of condominiums that have banned any type of smoking of any products within their common areas that hasn't been tested yet

▶ 1:29:54 Speaker 3: that i know of maybe uh but i think we have to sort of bear in mind that this is in an evolving area of law and it intersects with so many private rights and the rights of employers and you know um i'm not sure some will remember that within the last couple years a state trooper was actually killed on the mass pike by a person operating a motor vehicle and that person was actually legitimately using medical marijuana but they were under the influence of that marijuana they shouldn't have been driving obviously law enforcement still has certain powers in in regard to people operating a motor vehicle but you know the the intersection between medical and adult use marijuana is is a difficult one and a lot of communities at trying to wade through all those complex issues right now. My understanding of the proposal of Alderman Zwirko is really to, on a local level, codify what the state has already done via question four, as I understand. If I'm saying anything wrong, President Zwirko, please let me know. That's my understanding of this piece. I think you probably should carve out, now that we've had the discussion tonight, this medical use by way of an amendment, but other than that, I think what you're trying to do is codify what's already been done by the voters at the state law level.

▶ 1:31:24 Speaker 8: Thank you.

▶ 1:31:26 Francis X. Wright Jr.: I'll set Alderman Medeiros, Alderman Mortimer.

▶ 1:31:30 Peter D. Mortimer: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Just to address the concerns, I hope it will assuage some of Alderman Medeiros concern through the chair that at least some of the ordinances already have on the books do prevent smoking of anything they say no smoking i think well we can check with the city solicitor and this is this is hopefully to assuage your concerns uh to be a palliative for you um is for example no smoking is allowed at all at on school grounds so people can't even i'm done um people can't even smoke cigarettes even grown-ups can't smoke cigarettes at a football game at Melrose High or people couldn't smoke a cigarette in Giacomo's and I don't think I think they say no smoking so I hope that's the way it is that if they say no smoking it means you if even with a medical card you can't smoke a marijuana cigarette in Giacomo's over in Stearns and Hills because it says no smoking or no smoking on city grounds I can understand your point it's it's very well taken that if there were four or five people with medical cards and they were in a crowded area like the Victorian Fair which was out on Main Street and they were all smoking marijuana together than that marijuana could have a deleterious effect to waft over to children and or perhaps be dropped on the ground and a pet might pick up the stub end of a marijuana cigarette and that could that could be a problem or walked over to adults who have no desire to to inhale any secondhand marijuana smoke but maybe I'm wrong about that I can see you shaking your head so maybe what I'm saying isn't helpful but I was hoping that it would and maybe can be clarified by uh the chief and the city solicitor uh and uh other alderman president thank you very much mr

▶ 1:33:37 Francis X. Wright Jr.: chairman thank you alderman uh president Zwirko thank you again mr chairman and just to clarify

▶ 1:33:40 Michael P. Zwirko: a couple of things that have been already brought up during this good discussion because this is very helpful um i did speak with city solicitor rob van campen earlier um today today actually and over the couple days we've discussed this with respect to the issue of a fine or a penalty there's a general provision for our ordinances I believe it's section 119 and that allows for enforcement structure on these types of items so I didn't put one in but the city solicitor assured me that we could leverage the general provision for such a fine structure for this particular ordinance I'd also say to the concern that was raised by alderman Boisselle I you know I could be at the Melrose common with a coca-cola bottle and there could be rum in there I mean you wouldn't know it by looking at it so you know liquor does have the same enforcement concerns with you know if I was eating a marijuana candy bar you know you wouldn't necessarily know so we do have those I just for folks here I this is really to help in a situation where to Alderman Mortar's suggestion where folks wouldn't be using this in Main Street at the Victorian Fair they might be far enough away from a doorway they might not be in a restaurant but they are in the public space and we don't want you know this secondhand smoke or any type of consumption of this mind altering substance to impact others who aren't or don't want to use it so what I would just say is let's use some caution here let's not let the perfect be the enemy of the good and if we can get something on the books that is going to at least at the first instance prevent this from happening we can always come back and modify it as things change or as incidences occur and maybe tighten it up even if we find out that we have power to do so but I do think some good suggestions have come out of this and I do appreciate everyone's work I mean obviously we need to amend it to address the difference of medical versus retail recreational I noted earlier that alderman and when we first discussed this back in January alderman Letter Garabedian made the suggestion to add the word other with the near the word city properties that's helpful that helped strengthen this so you know we don't know you know I'm just saying this is a good discussion let's continue it let's see where we can end up but I do think that this is needed here at the local level in light of all the changes that we've seen over the past couple of years thank you mr. chairman thank you

▶ 1:36:09 Francis X. Wright Jr.: Mr. President, Alderman McMaster, and I apologize, I should have recognized you before I allowed the President to speak twice, no offense, it was not the rookie treatment, it was my

▶ 1:36:21 Shawn M. MacMaster: error. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Chief, for being here. In reading the amended, or proposed amended order, as I see it now, Section 1772, Drinking possessing alcoholic beverages this seems to be modeled after what is already in order and what seems absent to me is no language relative to possession i see no person shall drink or possess in any open or partially consumed container or alcoholic beverages is defined etc I don't see the word possess under the amended language and I'm wondering should it include that word possess as it reads right now the amended order would say no person shall smoke and jest or otherwise user or consume should the word possess be there for enforcement purposes well I think what you run into

▶ 1:37:23 Speaker 3: to Alderman McMaster in that instance is, again, this intersection where an individual does have a right to possess marijuana even if it's in a public place, the question-

▶ 1:37:40 Speaker 5: A certain amount of marijuana.

▶ 1:37:42 Speaker 3: Correct. Correct. The question at that point is, again, we don't want to infringe on the right to possess that certain amount of marijuana that's currently allowed by state law. I you know I'm not sure whether you want to include that terminology or not do

▶ 1:38:01 Shawn M. MacMaster: you think there should be some further clarity or would leaving it out you think satisfy the purposes of the proposed order by President Zwirko based

▶ 1:38:11 Speaker 3: on my understanding of President's work goes intent I think leaving the word possessed out makes the most sense if the body wants to insert you know more clarifying language I would ask that I be given a little time to maybe have a at a later committee meeting address that.

▶ 1:38:30 Speaker 5: Mr. Chairman, I have one additional question.

▶ 1:38:33 Speaker 1: Go right ahead, Alderman McMaster.

▶ 1:38:35 Shawn M. MacMaster: Alderman Lipper-Garabedian mentioned the enforcement piece, and if that ends up being an amendment, should the board be looking at language to focus on incidents where there might be multiple offenses? So, for instance, if somebody contacted the police department about an individual smoking in a park, and by the time the police arrived, that individual may be in a motor vehicle, in a parking lot, and it's clear that there's an open container of marijuana as defined by Chapter 94G. Should the police have the discretion, and maybe this is a question for Chief Lyle, to cite for both offenses? Should the enforcement provision, presumably the enforcement provision would come down as an amendment should it elucidate that there's a distinction between consumption and possession to allow the police at their discretion to cite for both offenses

▶ 1:39:44 Speaker 3: my assumption is that that law enforcement is going to handle the possession piece

▶ 1:39:50 Speaker 6: under state law there would be operation now now we're looking at operation if somebody's behind the wheel consuming there's there's different dynamics that we would have the always the option for a city ordinance violation but now you're talking about motor vehicle criminal law so it's a misdemeanor but yes there would be so even if if the individual wasn't

▶ 1:40:09 Shawn M. MacMaster: so the individual was in a car not in a public way and um the the keys were not in the ignition um would we be looking at the ability to enforce that at the municipal level

▶ 1:40:28 Speaker 3: where state law may not then apply i'm not sure i'm following your question um i know that alderman trim and toesy asked a question as to whether or not at a prior meeting this ordinance could be applicable to a private carrier in a private setting in my view was it didn't appear that the language was intended to do that um so are you suggesting alderman that we could use this language if passed to enforce the consumption of marijuana by an individual in a private vehicle on a public way?

▶ 1:41:00 Shawn M. MacMaster: Yes, if it's not a matter of operation. If the keys aren't in the ignition and the individual is just sitting and using in a parking lot, I'm just wondering if it would be helpful for the police to have that discretion to cite for multiple offenses as opposed to one, the first offense being consumption in a park the second being open container as defined we've always had that option

▶ 1:41:22 Speaker 6: we've done it with alcohol in many cases where we use the city ordinance versus the state ordinance thank you state excuse me state law thank you mr. chair

▶ 1:41:35 Manisha Bewtra: thank you Alderman Alderman Bewtra Thank You chairman and from your perspective a two-part question from your perspective what would be the downside of dropping the language regarding ingesting or otherwise using and just limiting the language to smoking from the proposed ordinance change so currently the the

▶ 1:41:56 Speaker 3: amended wording would read no person no person shall smoke ingest or otherwise use or consume marijuana your what are you suggesting all of them if it said no

▶ 1:42:10 Manisha Bewtra: person shall smoke marijuana or tetrahydrocannabinol if it if it if the section ingest or otherwise use was dropped otherwise use or consume was dropped from the language are there I mean I understand it would potentially limit your powers but I just wanted to hear from the kind of scenarios you've thought through what you you know what limitations that might have in terms of enforcement or concerns it would raise so chief Lyle and I through the process

▶ 1:42:47 Speaker 3: of working with various medical marijuana dispensaries over the last year have become somewhat expert on what forms medical marijuana can take smoking is a is a small percentage of the forms there's ingesting you know through edibles there's topical skin treatment like an oil what am i missing yeah there's all sorts of things there's a tincture that you can put under your tongue and it just dissolves so I guess the question is do you want to regulate those uses or are you just trying to avoid smoking the scent of marijuana in public I guess is the question and that's a question for the body thank you

▶ 1:43:35 Manisha Bewtra: that was partially what I was getting at because I guess another piece of this would be you know are there other ways that you could if if somebody was being a public nuisance are there other ways you can act if there wasn't say this marijuana use of marijuana language in place is there you would still be able to approach the person question them and if you didn't approach anybody just as

▶ 1:44:02 Speaker 6: any citizen could approach them and say hi how are you I'm officer you know Lyle or whatever it may be and what are you up to I mean if they're consuming marijuana or smoking cigarettes you could still have a conversation with them but vaping seems to be a new trend in ingestion thank you um thanks I my

▶ 1:44:24 Manisha Bewtra: concern is that the smoke I mean smoking clearly has a sort of like a secondary like the smell and secondary right and similarly vaping is just sort of like it the effect affects people around the user versus these other potential ways of adjusting I don't I don't believe do so that thank you for entertaining those

▶ 1:44:55 John N. Tramontozzi: questions. Thank you. Alderman Tramontozzi. Yeah I guess the the discussion I guess involves you know what's the purpose of the this ordinance is it to protect the person who's using and consuming or to protect the public as a whole I mean that the voters of this the Commonwealth have voted to lawful possession to make law for the possession of marijuana for good or for want of good that the voters chose to do that so we'll be on that just a medical medicinal purpose of marijuana and consumption so Alderman Butcher made some good points about you know so what we've been trying to protect the individual who's using or protect the public obviously the smoking the secondhand smoke is the issue of the public around you but on the other hand I'm looking at the the ordinance regarding drinking is not a secondhand aspect of drinking other than if a person becomes too intoxicated he could become then a danger to others himself or others so on the one hand to put the the ingesting of marijuana and the consumption regardless of the form is also to I suspect to prevent the person from becoming too much of a belligerent, disorderly person, it's going to affect the public.

▶ 1:46:25 John N. Tramontozzi: So I'm not sure just eliminating the rest of the ingestion. If the purpose of the ordinance is to protect the public as a whole, then you keep in the language ingest or otherwise use or consume marijuana just like you would keep in drinking possession or otherwise because it may not be hurting the individual who's consuming it, but it becomes a potential danger to the public as a whole.

▶ 1:46:54 John N. Tramontozzi: I don't think we need the enforcement aspect. I think we've got other provisions in the ordinances that provide for enforcement. I just leave that. I think I would leave that out, and I don't think we need that to be in this particular proposed amendment to

▶ 1:47:21 John N. Tramontozzi: this text other than that it was there was one I apologize there was somebody suggested an insertion of some other language at some point medical to

▶ 1:47:31 John N. Tramontozzi: differ all the the amendment to so this would be no person shall smoke and gesture otherwise use consume unless properly permitted by the medical license to do so words to that effect that we can handle we can handle that I think this if the city solicitor can figure out that language to insert an

▶ 1:48:03 John N. Tramontozzi: amend it I think would be okay that's just some comments that I had in terms of looking at the legal aspect of it thank you all the my hope that helps you

▶ 1:48:14 Francis X. Wright Jr.: any other comments all them in Forbes followed by all the member Daros Thank

▶ 1:48:17 Scott M. Forbes: You mr. chairman you know I look at this order and I I appreciate the language that's in here I feel like it's a deterrent and because it's a deterrent it's probably the most effective way of enforcement people can think ahead before they go out and engage in the public where for they if if somebody wants to bring you know if marijuana is illegal and they want to bring something then they know that they have to think twice before they go somewhere whether it's church whether it's a park if there's sporting events for kids and families you know no one wants to be around somebody that's disorderly whether it's through marijuana or whether it's through alcohol so I think that on its merit what we're trying to do is we're trying to protect areas of the community where we feel like that you know it's more family oriented they're municipal properties and it helps law enforcement enforce what we feel is common sense you know I don't think we should be smoking at a church shouldn't be having edibles at a you know a little kicker soccer class down by the track so I feel like that we're definitely on the right path here whether or not we insert recreational marijuana or not I think the chief makes a good point this ordinance allows them to go up and have a conversation and they can make that determination I'm not sure if we need to make the determination and itself in the order and we can leave it up to law enforcement to take that next step but like I said on its merit I think putting this in here and having it be the deterrent is what law enforcement needs to do its job so on that aspect I support the order thank you thank you

▶ 1:49:58 Monica C. Medeiros: thank you I think Alderman Forbes said that pretty well just on a you know a couple notes on again I'm not a voting member of this committee however I would be supportive of a car vote for an exception for medical use or for possessing a medical marijuana registration card or exactly maybe how it is worded in the legislation that passed I do think that we do have an enforcement mechanism in the Charter for our ordinances so I don't think we need a second one and you know my primary concern is is the the secondhand aspect of the the use of this substance and you know so while smoking or vaping is is my primary concern here and I do wish that you know we had heard and it's disappointing that we haven't heard back from the Health Department and but in my talking at to our health officials in the city I believe our ordinances that Alderman Mortimer mentioned are really all tobacco specific so I don't think that that actually covers things and from my looking at at this as well however I don't think we should hold this up in regard to that I think it's something that we could move forward with I think the intent is there to give the police officers some more tools to have this be a deterrent and you know also in in thinking about edibles and again talking about the unintended users it's not as many you know gummy bears that look like regular gummy bears out in the public then there's probably less chance that somebody who's not an intended user will do some whether it be a child or a particular child or a dog

▶ 1:51:57 Francis X. Wright Jr.: thank you any other Alderman Lippert Garabedian just two points so thank you for

▶ 1:52:01 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: president's work over flagging and other aldermen for confirming that we do have this provision I think it's one dash one nine it for the public it's that if any person violates any of the provisions of our ordinances they're subject to a hundred and fifty dollar fine so that does seem to cover it I don't know if they're maybe to the city solicitor or the police chief if there is us if there is any language that's general in nature that allows for seizure of for example an open container currently but in this case we would be applying it also to recreational marijuana do we have general language around seizure of

▶ 1:52:40 Speaker 3: items in our ordinance that would be again that would be a state law

▶ 1:52:44 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: enforcement issue I see okay I have seen that some of the other municipalities in Massachusetts do include seizure as explicitly in their local ordinances but okay and then the the other question or comment is I appreciate that President Roache brought to the city solicitor's attention my suggestion that we insert the word other in the proposed new paragraph to our ordinances so it would read where it says where it's prohibited it would include this long list of places and then it said it says or any area owned by or under the control the city Melrose we would just insert the word other there can I make a motion to amend so motion to amend to add the word other and there is in the packet that is available to the public the the city solicitors opinion that that would be

▶ 1:53:41 Francis X. Wright Jr.: appropriate was that your motion old man yes we have a motion to amend we have a

▶ 1:53:53 Peter D. Mortimer: second the motion I'll second it for purposes of discussion I was going to see if the maker of the order wants to amend it but uh is it i am seconding it i will yes sir so

▶ 1:54:02 Francis X. Wright Jr.: we have a motion and we have a second on discussion president thank you mr chairman the reason i

▶ 1:54:06 Michael P. Zwirko: didn't second that is because i actually was going to make i was going to move that we retain this in committee once more and only for the purposes that i do want to hear back from the board of health ruth clay i also think that given some of the changes that we've discussed this evening I just want a little bit more time to put something forward I'd like to just amend it once I don't want to do it piecemeal it does look or at least I feel that people are gonna be supportive of this but let's just get it right so I'd like a little bit more time so that's why I didn't second the motion made by Alderman Letter Garabedian so I will not be supporting the motion to amend at this time but once we get past that I will move that we retaining

▶ 1:54:47 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: committee I'm happy to withdraw if that's the preference that makes sense

▶ 1:54:52 Francis X. Wright Jr.: to me too and I will withdraw my second the second has been withdrawn the motion has been withdrawn thank you any other comments from any Alderman I just have a few I was getting late chief yes whether you're high on marijuana you're which is medical and let's say for example or if I'm taking a narcotic because I have a health issue I have had surgery and I over you know I take more than I'm prescribed and I end up having ends up having effect on my ability to operate a vehicle whatever that's still a violation of law is that correct it is

▶ 1:55:29 Speaker 6: it's OUI drugs operating on the offensive drugs just like operating on

▶ 1:55:34 Francis X. Wright Jr.: you know so it's no different whether you know there isn't alcohol narcotics it doesn't matter if they're legal or illegal if it impacts your ability to operate a vehicle a moving violation correct yes it is crime perhaps

▶ 1:55:54 Francis X. Wright Jr.: okay and it's I mean I don't know enough about this but just a comment I mean medical marijuana can be taken without having any psychotropic or intoxicating effects I heard Bob LaBelle on the radio Friday I think it was Bob LaBelle for those of you who aren't old enough to know is a was a sportscaster on Channel for many years decades and he was talking about how he has pain in his knees and for the lawyers in the room he just lost a lawsuit his ability to take a golf cart on a course that doesn't allow on the greens but he did that because he has such pain in his knees and the only thing that allowed him to function day-to-day now is is it taking medical marijuana but he takes the tincture whatever under his tongue it has no effect there's no intoxicating effect or whatever so I'm not quite sure how this will play out chief city solicitor might know better than me as far as will we see a vast majority of medical marijuana having no intoxicating effect or will be 50-50 I guess we'll we'll all find out going forward the other comment I have is and I guess the question for the city solicitor is we're keeping this in committee but in your opinion and you don't have to express it tonight is is there value in holding this in committee to the extent that we wait till the dust settles statewide and do we want to potentially put an ordinance into effect that may conflict with a state statute coming down the road but I'd be curious to know you know if you have any thoughts along that line yeah I mean that's a valid point I'd

▶ 1:57:49 Speaker 3: like to have some time to consider it Jim and right but it is a valid point and maybe in working with presidents work on some of the modifications that I've heard tonight we can we can look at that question and report back to this committee at its next meeting good I think that's the best approach thank you

▶ 1:58:06 Francis X. Wright Jr.: I appreciate it. Thank you, gentlemen. I appreciate it both. Any other comments or questions? Hearing none, do we have a motion to hold this in committee? Second. We have a motion to hold this in committee by the President, seconded by Alderman Mortimer. All in favor? Aye. The motion will be held in committee.