Health, Education & Welfare Committee — 2014-11-24
Attendance
Jaclyn L. Bird ; Robert A. Boisselle ; Donald L. Conn Jr. ; Scott M. Forbes ; Gail Infurna ; Jennifer L. Lemmerman ; Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis ; Monica C. Medeiros ; Peter D. Mortimer ; John N. Tramontozzi
Agenda
Minutes
CITY OF MELROSE HEALTH, EDUCATION & WELFARE COMMITTEE CALENDAR● NOVEMBER 24, 2014 Aldermanic Chamber Committee Meeting 7:30 PM The public should take notice that the Melrose Board of Aldermen may, on certain occasions, have a quorum in attendance due to standing committees of the Board of Aldermen consisting of both voting and non-voting members. Members attending this duly posted meeting are participating and deliberating only in conjunction with the business of the standing committee. Attendee Name Title Status Arrived Robert A. Boisselle Chairman Present Monica C. Medeiros Vice Chairman Present Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis Alderman at Large Present Scott M. Forbes Ward 7 Alderman Present Jennifer L. Lemmerman Ward 2 Alderman Present Donald L. Conn Jr. President/Ex-Officio Member Present Jaclyn L. Bird Nonvoting Member Present Gail M. Infurna Nonvoting Member Present Peter D. Mortimer Nonvoting Member Present John N. Tramontozzi Nonvoting Member Present In Attendance: Health Director Ruth Clay
ORDER-2015-67 Acceptance Acceptance of mini-grant of $1000 from the Health Resources in Action Recommend Passage Board of Aldermen City of Melrose Page 1 Updated 12/1/2014 2:52 PM
Transcript
▶ 0:00 Robert A. Boisselle: To order for this committee of the Health, Education, and Welfare Committee on November 24, 2014 at 7.30 p.m. This meeting is composed of voting and non-voting members of the committee. The chairman is Robert Boisselle. The vice chairman is Alderman Medeiros. The alderman, Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis. Alderman Forbes for Ward 7. Alderman Lemmerman of Ward 2. and alderman khan president ex-official member non-voting members we have alderman bird alderman ferna alderman mortimer alderman and tramatosi we uh don't have a motion for public participation so moved we have a motion for public participation second second also anyone in the audience wishing to come forward at this time to discuss anything that the committee is covering this evening please
▶ 0:53 Robert A. Boisselle: come forward no one has come forward close motion to close the public participation is second second also I want to mention that we are being televised by channel 3 and they will be available in the coming weeks and also be on the their website which you'll be able to see almost instantaneously this evening all right we have one order for this evening we have ordered 2015-67 This is the acceptance of the mini-grant of $1,000 from the Health Resource in Action. We have the, do we have the Board of Health Director here? She's just here. She's just here. She ran off to Ruth. Well, while we're searching. The motion is to suspend the rules to bring forward the Director of the Department of Health.
▶ 1:50 Robert A. Boisselle: We have a motion to suspend the rules. Is there a second? Second. Okay, and we'll wait for the public health director, Miss Clay, which I hope is approaching very quickly. Motion for a two minute recess, Mr. Chairman. I have a motion for recess. Second. Second. We have a one minute recess. Here she comes, hold it. Belay that order. And the director of public health has entered the chamber. Motion to reconvene. Motion to reconvene. Motion to reconvene. Second? Second. Second, we have Alderman Bedellis, okay. Ms. Clay. Yes. We're discussing order 2015 and that 67, this is the mini grant of $1,000 from the health resource and action. Could you explain a little more detail on this? Yes, that is, it is a mini grant because it's only $1,000.
▶ 2:50 It's for the youth for a Chapter 84 tobacco program, and the money will go towards our Chapter 84 youth group at the high school to do some work on tobacco control. It's the first time we've officially had a Chapter 84. We've had a youth group for many years, but this is basically a subgroup of the bigger group that specifically works on tobacco issues, and this grant's available every year for up to $3,000, and we applied for three, but we only got the $1,000. Any questions from the members? Alderman Daryl. Thanks. From the memo that we have here, so this is to do a survey on advertising and the availability of cheap cigars just focused on cigars and that's it yeah they they had a menu of things that we could apply for it wasn't like an open-ended anything we
▶ 4:01 wanted and we gave our first second and third choices and they that was our third choice that's what they told us we could do I don't know why they didn't let us do what we felt was the most important thing for our community but it's kind of how the state goes sometimes they there are a number of cigars out there like cigarillos and mini cigars black and milds that you can buy one at a time for 69 cents it's kind of a going price right now obviously at that very inexpensive price they're very attractive to young people because if you have a buck in your pocket you can it and it kind of goes against the whole philosophy that we've had for from the very beginning of when we started tobacco control about not allowing loose cigarettes you know you have to buy
▶ 4:56 cigarettes as a pack of 20 which at this point is approximately $8 as opposed to one at a time and the whole concept was one at a time it's really inexpensive and a kid with some pocket change could go in and buy it so these loose cigar these individual cigars are going back to that so some of the actually a number of boards of health have been revising their regulations and having a minimum price of a single cigar to be 250 so it kind of goes towards the you know regular higher-end kind of cigar and eliminates the really cheap inexpensive ones malden actually passed that and so did north reading so that's something that the Board of Health is going to be looking at survey will give us some more
▶ 5:50 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: information of exactly how widespread it is here in in Melrose and if they looked at passing that kind of regulation what how many would it impact and what kind of impact it would make thank you thank you very much Alderman McAteer-Marcos Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Clay, as always, for seeking out these kinds of funds to help with the prevention. Are these the students that are on the Substance Abuse Prevention Coalition? Right. A subgroup of that group. Right. Right. That Lauren Dustin's working with. Okay. Yep. It's a great team of students, and they're really involved, and I'm sure that funding will help them. So they're not going to be trying to buy these. They're just going to be doing a survey at this point.
▶ 6:35 Peter D. Mortimer: no we do that's a whole set of things that we do and we actually just did a compliance check in the last couple of days and we did have one sale you know in the mouse yeah great and I mean not great but thank you for doing that and identifying and your board will take appropriate actions with that vendor so thank you thank you mr. Chanis Alvin Mortimer thank you very much seeing has I saw this has come under the auspices of the substance abuse program. Is there any connection here with, I know one of the ways that people smoke marijuana is they call it a Philly blunt. And they hollow out a cheap cigar like a Philly. And they smoke it that way. Was there anything in the literature about a connection along those lines?
▶ 7:28 Peter D. Mortimer: You can buy blunt raps separately, and the Board of Health already banned the sale of blunt raps in Melrose, except in a retail tobacco store, which we don't have. All right. So is there any thinking about these cheap cigars that people might just hollow them out a little bit? No, it's really more towards the lower the price, the more attractive they are to young people. Right. At what point do you think there'd be any problem? I mean, I'm sure we've all seen the news, there was just a big ballyhoo out in Westminster Mass when they tried to ban tobacco completely, and it's a legal substance. When you start chipping away, and please don't misunderstand, I'm not in opposition to this at all. I have two young children who are in the line of temptation and the line of advertising that they try to purvey.
▶ 8:26 Peter D. Mortimer: So I'm happy to see that all these steps are taken. But I'm wondering at what point, just as a quick aside, I had a neighbor who came and wanted me to submit an order banning pesticides. And I said, well something like that is state regulated and federal regulated. There's a point where local boards of legislation, such as this, are overstepping their bounds. Do you see any conflict we might run into constitutionally where we start to chip away at the edges of what type of soft drinks, what types of tobacco are banned, where we're starting to maybe get a little close to the blue line, do you think? The board hasn't discussed banning tobacco or soft drinks at all. Well, but when you start to come and you say, not this kind of tobacco, and not that kind of tobacco,
▶ 9:16 Peter D. Mortimer: and I wonder was there any talk that you're starting to get close to a line with tobacco, that if you ban too much, if you prohibit certain types, it starts to approach the level of ban. Has there been any discussion about that on the Board of Health? No. All right, just food for thought. You might bring that back to them. Not that I'm opposed to it. It's just we don't want to invite a lawsuit. to our community. Thank you very much, that's all I have. Any other questions from the board? Motion to recommend. Second. There's a motion to recommend, second by Alderman Forbes. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed, against? Okay, orders 2015-67 will be recommended to the full board. Motion to adjourn.