2/1/2001 BOARD OF HEALTH Minutes

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ANTES February 1, 2001 3 BOARD OF HEALTH APPOINTMENT: Bob Collette CCRTCP re; Public Smokiniz Ban Surve Mr. Bob Collette ofthe Cape Cod Regional Tobacco Control Program and Mr. Jeff Dinger of the Tobacco Education Coalition of Cape Cod, Martha's vineyard and Nantucket were in attendance for this scheduled appointment. Mr. Collette stated, "I wanted to come before you gentlemen tonight because we haven't been around in at least two or three years to discuss the smoking regulation that you have here in town. As you know the mid-Cape is pretty much smoke free from Barnstable east. We have some upper Cape towns including Mashpee, Sandwich, Bourne, and Falmouth that are not smoke-free at this time. The L epartm- ent of Public Health lth S uth a t Regional Tobacco Control Program has been approached by UMass Dartmouth, who is grilling to conduct a survey of the towns that didn't have 100% smoke-free bans in place to see if the people were ofrilling mind t go that moray. What they are going to do is survey Sandwich, M s pee, Bourne, Nantucket and 17 other ternsoff-Cape to measurepublic willingness to go along with a total ban on smoking in public places. I have a copy of the surrey for you. I wanted the Board to know about this so that when they-target the press you are aware ahead f time." "They are targeting the survey to 500 people in ta%m. They are looping at % f the voter list or 500 people, whichever is the greater number. It's a very basic survey with six questions. "The other reason I wanted to bring this to your attention is that there is a group of citizens that are working on perhaps placing an article on the town 'Meeting warrant that would accomplish this. As the Board ofHealth I granted to extend the courtesy to you to let you know this is corning so if you wanted to act as the Board of Health to do that, that you could preempt that action.Pf Discussion took place regarding current ventilation systems in restaurants and what regulations other towns have in place at this time. Mr. Ball asked, "If this article was petitioned by the public voters and we didn't put our hand onto it and it passed, what happens then? Does it become a by-laver even if the Board of Health doesn't vete on it?" Mr. Collette responded, "Yes, it becomes a by-lave. what we are hoping for is support from the Board of Health. If you are net willing to do the regulation on cur- n, you can at least get up and say that this is good idea t l protect the public health." "If it is alay-laver, it could be written in that the Board ofHealth is the enforcing agent and that's probably what would happen." Discussion took place regarding smoking bans in other Cape towns and the recent court ruling upholding the Town of Barnstable smoking ban. Mr. Doherty indicated that he supports an amended regulation by the Board of Health. Mr. Ball indicated that he would net be in favor of amending the current regulation and Mr. Santos stated that he would like to do further research on the topic before making a final decision. Mr. Robert rne of Bobby yrne's Pub stated that he wants to see things remain the same. He stated that since the smoking bars passed in Barnstable, the sales at his Hyannis restaurant are down by 17%. He feels that smoking is part ofthe culture of the bar environment.