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HomeMy WebLinkAbout1981-02-021 BOARD OF HEALTH MEETING FEBRUARY 2, 1981 The regular meeting of the Board of Health was held Monday, February 2, 1981 in Room 5-25 (Board of Health Office). Members present were: Dr. William L. Cosgrove, Chairman; James W. Lambie, Dr. Michael S. Erdos and George A. Smith, Director of Health. The minutes of the last meeting were approved as read. Mr. Smith told the Board that Mr. & Mrs. Williams of 344 Lowell Street had applied for a permit to keep 2 Nubian goats. He said the Animal Inspector saw nothing to object to. Dr. Erdos asked if they have the facilities to care for them? Yes, they do have the facilities and there really isn't much care that goats need. He said there are several people in Town that have these goats. Mr. Smith said that basically people keep them for the milk and they also can keep the yards cut down by their grazing. The Board voted to give the Williams a permit for two Nubian goats. At seven -thirty p.m. Lisa Fitzgerald came before the Board. She is requesting to keep six horses and her permit calls for four at the present time. Dr. Cosgrove told Lisa that she had already put six horses on her property. She said she had moved the two extra out of the stable this past weekend. The Board asked how long she had the two extra horses without a permit. She said she had them there approximately a month. Dr. Cosgrove told her that she had no right to have the 6 horses there with- out first applying to the Board of Health. He said also, that the Animal Inspector had not given a very good report to them about the property, that there never had been a manure pit put in as he had requested her to do. Lisa saidshehad hired a contractor to put in a manure pit. She brought a plan with her for the Board to see. Dr. Erdos said for Lisa's information and to be read into the record he will read the report from the Animal Control/Animal Inspector after conducting an inspection of the property. I quote the letter: "Following Virginia's (Fitzgerald Lovett) request for an increase in the number of horses she may keep under per permit, I conducted a pre -permit inspection of her property and the property next door at 336 Bed- ford Street, owned by Mr. Frank Johnson. My inspection revealed that although there are, in fact, six suitable stalls in the barn now, Mr. Lovett and Miss Fitzgerald did not wait for a permit to be issued before bringing in all six horses. I found four horses corralled on the Fitzgerald -Lovett property and two more horses corralled on the Johnson property. +3 X38 HEALTH DEPT. FOOD SERVICE PERMITS It is also interesting to note that Mrs. Lovett owns 31 acres, only enough land to keep three horses, and Mr. Johnson proposed to lease to her all six acres of his property for the purpose of keeping horses. It is further interesting to note that, as yet, there is not a proper manure pit for the storage of horse manure. There exists only a dug out hole where manure is piled and seldom covered. There should be a pit constructed of concrete, wood or metal that can be easily covered and emptied. My recommendation is that this property be restricted to the four horses now allowed under the old permit, until such time as a proper manure pit is constructed. Not until then, should a six horse permit be considered. Barry Littleton Lisa Fitzgerald said the contractor she has hired will put in the correct manure pit. Dr. Cosgrove suggested to Lisa that she do what she is suppose to do to keep four horses and then come back when the manure pit is completed and apply to keep six horses. That's not saying that you will get the permit increased at that time. Mr. Lambie said he is not prepared to go for six horses at this time. The Board voted to keep the Fitzgerald permit at four horses at this time. The Board asked Lisa if she boarded horses for money. She said "No" they were all her horses. She has taken some in that have been injured and cannot be sold and tries to bring them back to health. Mrs. Gabriel cannot be with us tonight, Mr. Smith said but he wanted the Board to know that the Department is having a problem in having food establishments return their applications and fees on time. Mrs. Gabriel has composed a letter to send out telling the food service owners there would be a $10.00 a month fee for every month they are late in filing their application. Dr. Erdos said some of the permits are only $5.00 or $10.00 anyway. Mr. Lambie asked if it was legal to charge this fee. Mr. Smith said he had discussed it with the Town Attorney, Mr. Cohen and he said there would be no problem. Dr. Erdos asked if it would be a flat fee of $10.00 or $10.00 a month for every month it is overdue. Mr. Smith said it would be $10.00 per month for each month they are delinquent. Dr. Erdos said that the letter Mrs. Gabriel wrote did not specify, it should be made plain that it will be $10.00 per month. The Board agreed to accept this late fee. 1 1 1 1 1 1 `)39 Mr. Smith asked the Board to raise the fees of some of our permits. He said restaurants have been $25.00 for several years. The Board voted to raise the fee for food service establishment permits for restaurants, cafeterias to $50.00 a permit. The Board also voted to raise the following fees: Vending machines $10.00 per location Mobile Food Servers $10.00 Theatre Snack Bars $10.00 Markets $30.00 Catering $25.00 annually or $5.00 per function Recreation Day Camps $25.00 Chemical Toilets $1.00 Rabbish, Garbage, offal $10.00 per truck Septic System Construction $50.00 (new or repair) Funeral Directors $25.00 Animal Permits $10.00 per animal ($50.00 maximum fee per owner) Massage Parlours $100.00 Masseuse/Masseur $50.00 Church kitchens will still be given permits without a fee, but there will be a late charge of $10.00 per month for late filing. Temporary permits will be $10.00 each for commercial, (carnivals, stores, etc.) $5.00 each for non-commercial (churches, schools, V.F.W., Boy Scouts, etc.) Swimming pools, wading pools, jacuzzi, etc. permit charges were raised in the Fall, so they will not be raised again at this time. Mr. Smith said the State sets the fees for some permits or licenses so the Board cannot raise those fees. Dr. Erdos wanted to know if the Board was going to push the issue of people who have stables and board horses for other residents to go before the Board of Appeals as this is a business. Yes, said Dr. Cosgrove, if they are getting paid to rent space to horse owners. Mr. Smith said when they are questioned, they all deny they are boarding horses. Dr. Cosgrove said maybe that is why the Smoske's haven't been back to re -apply for their animal permit. Mr. Smith told the Board that our Animal Control Officer had put the Smoske's into court because the Board of Selectmen had ordered the Smoske's dog out of town and the Smoske's did not remove it. Mr. Smith told the Board that he is still working on the "Animal Regulations". Mr. Smith told the Board that the Town Manager has taken $3000.00 from the Health Department budget. That is the money that was always set aside for any tuber- culosis cases of Lexington residents that could not pay. 40 Dr. Cosgrove said the Town Manager was going to cut out Mystic Valley payments completely but according to the paper it was only cut down by $3000. Mr. Smith reported to the Board that a Dr. Gaut is going to build a house up on Marrett Street, up in the wooded area. Marrett Street is a small road up near the road to Hanscom Air Base off of Route 2A. He said he had done deep hole testing there before and recently and the water table is quite high. There is one spot only that the septic system can be put in. He said the land owner that Dr. Gaut brought the land from had told him that he could connect to Town sewer through Woodpart Circle, but that isn't so. Mr. Smith told the Board that he has been up to his ears in complaints about "no heat" from residents that are renting property. At one address on Mass. Ave. there were four people living in an apartment. The landlord was not supplying heat as was in the contract. There had been a dispute over a garbage disposal and the landlord would not fix the heating elements until the dispute was settled. Then the pipes froze be- cause of lack of heat, etc. Mr. Smith told the landlord unless he fixed all of these things, and supplied heat he would file a complaint against him in the Concord Court. Another complaint came from a Marrett Road address. There were roomers there and the landlord would not raise the thermostat. Mr. Smith by this time checked with the State Health Department and told the landlord tem- peratures were to be maintained at $68° F. The warming of temperatures are helping the complaints from coming in. Mr. Smith told the Board that we are getting complaints about wood stoves. People are apparently burning other things besides wood and they are caus- ing odors that are getting into other peoples houses. The State is writing a set of guidelines but will not be able to enforce them. Mr. Smith told the Board that he went to a Physicians and Nurses Meeting of the schools on head lice. The nurses seem to be having a problem with the parents sending the children back to school with head lice or nits but they bring letters stating that they are cured of this. Parents aren't always doing too much to get rid of the problem. Mr. Smith said he told the nurses that they still have the right to send any child from school that they find with head lice. Mr. Smith reported that Brigham's in the center went out of business. He also said that the Sheraton rooms had been inspected and the part of the motel that was closed is now ready again to rent rooms. He said that the new "Goodies to Go" owner did a beautiful job of renovating the store. He also told the Board that a "Lil Peach" store was trying to locate in the centre. 1 1 1 Mr. Smith told the Board that Bel Canto's Restaurant was going to expand and take over part of the store that had been Melinda's Clothing Store. He said he had a meeting with the Watershed Manager for the City of Cambridge. Some people were interested in developing the land at Route 128/Rte. 2 near the Cambridge Water Basin. He said it was where the Post Office had thought of building. There are water table problems and bad perc rates there. Mr. Smith said there was some thought from the people wanting to develop the land that perhaps they could tie into public sewer through Waltham. He said he is going to keep an eye on the watershed. Other items discussed briefly with the Board by Mr. Smith were: Applications had begun to come in for food service booths for the April 19th holiday already. Also, Rabies Clinic will be coming up again in May. He said the Town Manager spoke to him about the budget and Mr. Smith told him we could not run the clinic at all if the Rabies Clinic budget was cut as it pays for it self. He said the Town Manager had him write the goals and objectives for the coming year and what we had accomplished for the past year. Mr. Smith said he wrote three pages on that. He told the Board that the Town Manager has a proposal to make the Dog Program a seven day a week job. Mr. Smith said he thinks that we will lose the weekend dog officer's job. Dr. Cosgrove asked why not get rid of the whole program. Mr. Smith said that may happen, too. Mr. Lambie said he thinks that the Town Manager is planning on raising all fees, also because of Proposition 21. Mr. Smith told the Board that we will be all right to run our annual Pneumococcal Vaccine Clinic. When we ordered last year's supply, we ordered enough for this year, also. He said we will still charge a fee to receive this vaccine. Meeting adjourned at 9:15 p.m. y: 4 i _42 The following permits were signed by the Board: FOOD SERVICE ESTABLISHMENTS ARA (Honeywell Radiation Center) Catch Penny Chelet 3 Forbes Rd. (vending) 440 Bedford (vending) The Kitchen Servomation (Ginn & Co.) 363A Mass. Ave. 191 Spring St. (vending) Itek #1 Optical Systems Cigarette Service (Burroughs Corp.) 10 Maguire Rd. 92 Hayden Ave. (vending) Servomation (D.C. Health Co.) Grace Chapel Inc. 125 Spring St. (vending) Worthen Rd. (kitchen) Brigham's N.E. Vending (Varian Vending) 34 Bedford St. 121 Hartwell Ave. Goodies to Go, Inc. (Gaye Pickrel) NEW St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church 1734 Mass. Ave. 17 Meriam St. (Kitchen) Lexington House of Pizza Servomation for Ginn & Co. 399 Lowell Street 191 Spring Street (cafeteria) Baskin-Robbins Ice Cream Shop 1729 Mass. Ave. MARKET REGISTRATIONS Mall Drug 1800 Mass. Ave. SYRINGE PERMIT Micro -Bit Corp. Mark R. Hargreaves 40 Hartwell Ave. INSTALLERS PERMITS Carey's Catch 46 Mass. Ave. Suburbanite Cesspool Service Deflice Bros. Corp. P.O. Box 448, Lexington P.O. Box 170, Lexington Arlex Oil Corp. Electric Sewer Cleaning Co. 275 Mass. Ave. 294 Lincoln St., Allston A.A. Cesspool Co. Bruce J. McKee 89 Willow St., Waltham 19 Buttaro Rd., Woburn Lawrence M. Carroll 753 Waltham St., Lexington 1 1 MANUFACTURE OF FROZEN DESSERTS Goodies to Go 1734 Mass. Ave. MOTEL/HOTEL LICENSES Catch Penny Chalet Motor Lodge 440 Bedford St. Battle Green Inn 1720 Mass. Ave. Sheraton -Lexington Motor Inn 727 Marrett Rd. METHYL ALCOHOL LICENSES Sherwin Williams Co. 25 Waltham St. Lawless -Mawhinney Motor, inc. 581 Marrett Rd. SEWER DISPOSAL PERMITS Sewer Reamer Service 61 Newton St., Somerville Rite -Clean Cesspool Service 23 Mohawk Rd., Burlington Suburbanite Cesspool Service P.O. Box 448, Lexington RUBBISH DISPOSAL PERMITS Browning-Ferris Industries 5 trucks 164 Market St., Brighton ANIMAL PERMITS Paul B. Lloyd 202 Cedar St. Virginia Fitzgerald 342 Bedford St. A.A. Cesspool Co. 89 Willow St., Waltham Sewer Man 32 Rio Vista St., No. Billerica R.E. Andrews Co. 20 Highgate Rd., Framingham, Mass. 2 Nubian goats (new) wants to increase from 4 to 6 horses `?43