The Revere Board of Health held its regular monthly meeting last Wednesday evening, January 25, in the City Council Chambers.
Dr. Drew Bunker, the board’s chairperson, and fellow members Dr. Craig Costanza and Nezha Louaddi were in attendance. Also on hand were Lauren Buck, the city’s Director of Public Health; Michael Wells, the city’s Health Agent/Director of Inspectional Services (ISD); and Paula Sepulveda, the Board of Health’s clerk.
The board heard a report from Bonny Carroll, the Director of the 6-City Tobacco Initiative, of which Revere is a member with Chelsea, Cambridge, Everett, Somerville, and Winthrop.
Carroll said the group’s primary function is to educate retailers about the tobacco laws. In addition, the group conducts enforcement actions by using underage purchasers of tobacco products to ensure that retailers are complying with the laws.
Carroll reported that she issued cease-and-desist orders to five local businesses for selling tobacco products to minors under the age of 21 in recent weeks.
Under the statute and state regulations — as adopted by the Revere Board of Health — a first violation by a Revere establishment calls for a $1000 fine and a suspension for three business days of the cigarette license. For a second violation within 36 months, the fine is $2000 and the suspension is for seven days.
Three of the businesses came before the board at last week’s meeting to appeal their fines and suspensions. Local attorney Cosmo Karalolos appeared on behalf of Gio Liquors.
“Gio Liquors has operated at 765 Broadway for more than four years,” said Karalolos. “A clerk failed to check the ID of a customer and the customer was sold a pack of cigarettes. The employee was 50 years old and had worked for Gio’s for only a few days, but the employee had worked at a similar establishment for five previous years and the employee had received proper training.
“My client had no reason to believe that the employee would have acted contrary to her previous five years of experience, nor to the compliance training she had just received,” Karalolos continued. “Gio’s never has had any violation of either the tobacco or liquor laws prior to this.”
Karalolos further added that the employee was immediately terminated and Gio’s has implemented a new series of training and compliance for all new employees. Karalolos presented the board with the new policies and procedures manual that Gio’s will be giving to all new employees.
He also said that the owner will be more proactive to ensure that employees are following the law. In addition, he said that a valid ID now will be needed by all prospective purchasers and that Gio’s has installed expensive equipment that requires employees to scan the IDs of all customers before a transaction can be rung-up by the cash register.
Karalolos asked that the $1000 fine be remitted.
“What you’re doing is very impressive,” said Bunker. “This is exactly what we hoped would come out of this.
“However,” Bunker continued, “strictly from a legal perspective, I think we have to go ahead with the fine and suspension. I don’t feel good about it, but we have to follow the law.”
Carroll pointed out to the board that the new state law requires that all prospective tobacco purchasers must present an ID.
The next matter involved the Speedway on Squire Rd. Cindy Lewis, the district manager for Speedway, told the board that a five-year employee did not check the ID.
“We have training when they’re hired and yearly training after that,” said Lewis. “The employee was terminated.”
Beachmont Liquors, 669 Winthrop Ave., also appealed its violation. Michael Gersten, the owner, noted that he and his brother usually are at the cash register, but that the employee who made the sale works two Sundays per month and “always is very diligent about checking IDs. It was just human error.”
“We understand that mistakes happen,” said Bunker, “but this is not something that we take lightly.”
Two other businesses that were cited during the month, Olympia Market and State Rd. Liquors, did not appeal their fines and suspensions.
After a brief discussion, the board members unanimously voted to uphold the three-day suspensions and the $1000 fines for all five businesses.
Prior to the hearings, the board heard the usual monthly reports.
Buck presented the Public Health Communicable Disease report. She noted that the cases of flu are quite high with 164 confirmed cases for the past month with an age range from one month to 88 years old.
“This is to be expected, as influenza affects a very large swath of the population,” said Buck. “We will continue to see high numbers for the next couple of months.”
Buck reminded residents that flu shots are available in pharmacies and supermarkets throughout the city.
As for COVID-19, Buck said there have been 26,862 cases reported in the city since the beginning of the pandemic with 196 deaths. She noted that the positivity rate appears to be declining after a spike during the holidays. However, Buck noted that the positivity rate probably understates the actual numbers because many are using at-home tests and do not report a positive test result to health authorities.
Buck said there are weekly COVID vaccine clinics at 50 Walnut Ave. on Tuesdays from 3-6:30. The shots are free and those who get the shot receive a $75 gift card.
Buck noted that the CDC declared the recent Ebola outbreak in Uganda to have ended as of January 11.
Wells presented the ISD monthly report in which he detailed the myriad of inspections and enforcement actions conducted by the ISD:
— There were 55 Certificates of Fitness for rental units and 10 interior complaints;
— There were 31 routine food inspections, 11 reinspections, one complaint inspection, and two pre-opening inspections;
— The department issued 26 citations for accumulations of litter and trash; one for a commercial motor vehicle in a residential neighborhood; 16 for improper storage of bulky items; 179 for improper placement of garbage and trash; three for improper signage on public property; three for improper storage of garbage; six for violations of the junk heap and auto graveyard ordinance; four for storing multiple unregistered motor vehicles; three for unclean/unsanitary land; one for an unsafe structure; seven for snow/ice/sump pump violations; and two for working without a permit.
Buck also presented the annual license renewals for Body Art establishments, most of which offer microblading services. She said all of the businesses inspected by the public health department, which require licenses both for the businesses and the individual practitioners, were in compliance with the city’s ordinances.
She recommended that the board approve all of the license renewals and the board did so unanimously.
