the meeting of the housing human services and transportation committee when i'll come to order it is just about one thirty one p m on thursday august when it twenty fifteen before we begin my request that we all turn off or silence our cell phones or other noise making devices i am your committee chair state secret fellow and with us today is our i'd like to take the time to introduce our administration representatives await us today there in the gallery we have lieutenant scott english department of fire and public safety and lieutenant scott lewis of wh we have couple of testifiers for us in the gallery for individuals who be testifying in the chamber please sign up at the desk located in the eighth floor lobby just outside the chamber door if you will be testifying from the remote testimony locations specified on the meeting agenda please sign up with the consular staff at that location testimony would be limited to the items listed on the agenda pursu  to the rules of the council each testify or will be allowed to testify for up to three minutes per item with one minute to conclude if requested when testifying please state your name and the name of any aloha i'm very happy to be here today and i am honored to be before such distinguished members of the council thank you for hearing my spin and how i feel about this i believe that i'm asking that we consider another way to do this that is to stop the smoke smoking ban issue i don't believe that it's in and of itself something that's really going to work i  fit in favor of designated areas or zones where people can smoke they don't bother others and receptacles to get the cigarette butts myself i don't smoke cigarettes but i understand that the people who do and that it's legal and i believe they should have the right and do have the right to smoke these things without interfering with others rights and i brought these issues before the distinguished members of the council prior to this meeting and i'm hoping that you'll hear my voice the end that the state has put on smoking is something that really can't be policed we i don't believe we can police it effectively  enforce it we don't have the police force or the code enforcement to do such a thing and even if we did what would it do i believe it would drive cigarette smokers to other places and the cigarette butts on the ground of diana and eventually into the sea we have to look at more of a broad perspective and then there is the economic side to this cigarettes the sales of them bring in a great deal of money and we need it right now we are in a recession this is something i feel we should consider i'm asking you to also to further what we're doing here although we may not believe we are see that we are the effect of this is that if or demonizing cigarette smokers people that smoke cigarettes and they can't smoke here they can't smoke there and it gives us a type of unfriendly  tobacco unfriendly environment and there's other places the tobacco placers our smokers could go where they're more friendly to them i'm not asking something very and reasonable here i'm merely asking that we consider using zones areas where people can smoke that are not going to interfere with the rights of others and provide receptacles are smoking ashtrays for them the cigarette butts have to be brought in and we need a area to contain them they're made of plastic the plastic does not the teary rate for at least twenty five years in effect the ban is a bandaid over the real issue here which is to get those cigarette butts and get rid of them the proper way and be more responsible about the ball about the what we're selling here abeam all the state is selling them and making a profit as well as the tobacco companies and i feel that if we work together they can provide or help to provide the receptacles and if we can find areas for people to smoke what would be a more realistic approach i just like to show you briefly what i have in mind th your point of view but i will offer first of all the state does not sell cigarettes its private sector sell cigarettes and the reason cigarettes are so heavily taxed is awareness of the long term health effects that come down the road from smoking cigarettes starting from cardio and working your way right through there are three hundred sixty four different carcinogens in cigarettes and so i think the awareness of people are stop smoking we've banded now for young people you have to be eighteen year old twenty want to be in a twenty one twenty one years of each to buy cigarettes we realize the detrimental effect on health of our youth as well as adults we can't stop someone who's thirty five forty fifty and i've got some tutus that still small and no matter what i say they're not going to listen bottom line in this is has a tremendous help effect and secondary cigarette smoke has an effect anyone in the close proximity this real wants a twenty foot radius from the bus shelters and the bus stop itself to ensure that that small does not affect people that are sitting there waiting for the bus so i respect what you're saying but please see understand that there is so much more than just the plastic itself that's just one part of a real large picture and this is why we have been banning in our parks and now we're going to ban and in our  facilities and this is the last step our bus stops so please excuse me for being very adamant united had many discussions i don't think receptacles is changing the situation we cannot have it where a couple in an arche who is seen there waiting for a bu right good afternoon council members and i'm chair a name is sonia nice and i countered coordinator for the coalition for tobacco free hawaii great to be back here and i am strong and strong support of the item number twenty two smoke free bus stops council member victory just very nicely stated but secondhand smoke is still quite a problem that we are faced with a lot of people think that it's just an indoor clothes settings but it's actually true for outdoor settings as well which is partly why we passed our tobacco free beaches and parks law with the bus stops area i've been getting a lot of complaints calls coming in to me and also to the department of health we've worked hand in hand to try to help figure out what kind of solution there could be for nonsmokers who are exposed to secondhand smoke in bus stop areas we were fortunate to work with the new shopping center to alleviate the problems that they've been having and we're really excited to see that you guys are taking a proactive stance and extending that policy to all bus stops currently in the nation there's four hundred  ten minutes apologies that have adopted smokefree transits that's in about thirty four states honolulu is one of them they passed their bill about a year ago little a year plus and right and so enforcement is a huge piece to this as we heard in the previous testimony is always an issue we're always concerned about it but i will say that the approach that we like to take is a social norm shift right and i think we're all somewhat familiar with that but smoking was quite common in restaurants in airplanes all over the place today if anyone was to smoke in these places we would all stand up and say excuse me but you cannot anymore that's the goal with the smoke free policies to extend to our tobacco free beaches and parks and also with smoke free bus stops if we have appropriate signage up it allows the community members to actually have a voice to help educate their other fellow community members i actually was just reminded by a community member in a doctor's office where they had a no no drinking no eating sign and i didn't see it and he said i'm sorry and he points to the sign in an old hey you know and similarly we see that that helps people have a voice so that we're not calling the police department and bogging them down with smoking complaints the litter is an issue of course always that's something that we're very concerned with we're actually working with a new we who works all throughout our community to help clean up the rubbish and we're working to try to figure out a way to educate smokers the ones that are still going to be smoking no matter why instead of flicking their butts we want to help give them little personal receptacles that they can have where they can dispose of their butts properly in the meantime until they can put them in a perfect trash can so minutes we are working on trying to alleviate that problem as well and i thank you for the time for my testimony thank you before i members for the for clarification or any questions i'd like to recognize counsel member don guzmn and also for a corporation consul is there thank you for being here members any questions or rephrasing or the testifier thank you thank you for being here and i'm sure the next testifiers rosemary robbins good afternoon everybody rosemary robins concerned citizen so much of what was in my thought has already been spoken here the say after no i just would like you to maybe close your eyes and raise your hand if you came here that's a captive audience the people who are riding the bus are the people who don't the types of choices that the majority of us under this roof i don't know really to close my eyes  they can only get around by bus so if where they're getting around is a depot that has secondhand smoke they're in trouble without any choice of avoiding it so despite the money that comes into the state for taxing it the soul lifeguard has never smoked anything so i just i'm so well aware that we need to model and to make sure that all of our citizens have the opportunities that are most available to them so at least continue on with this and make sure that we do have healthy but stops  you is there anyone wishing to provide testimony for the molokai district office thank you is there anyone in the gallery who would like to testify if so please identify yourself to the appropriate staff and proceed to the podium as the case may be there be molly county coal relating to prohibiting smoking at bus stops the purpose of the proposed bill is to prohibit smoking at county bus stops the committee may consider whether to recommend passage of the proposed bill on first reading with or without revisions the committee may also consider the filing of county communication fifteen dash two a five and other related action members the chair has requests that review and comment of the proposed bill by the department of transportation department of fire and public safety department of peace and the department of the prosecuting attorney the chair sought responses to various questions as noted it in the correspondence to each of these departments date at august twelve twenty fifteen that are in your binder the committee received a written response dated august one thousand nine hundred fifteen from prosecuting attorney john de kim which has been distributed to the members finders i have also distributed to the members today a proposed amendments to chapter eight point two zero in the context of existing smoking prohibition i'd like to start our agenda by asking our member have been made known publicly for many many years former smoker and nor the dangers and that's why it was some thirty five years ago i gave it up and have no regrets still today  basically this to me is probably the final step in public facilities because we've already banned them at our parks our beach parks our community centers our county we have a lot of seniors we have those who have health issues and we have a kicky that use the bus system as mentioned earlier by miss nice and deals or was in miss rob n somebody mention about the less the less fortunate or the those who need the help most who have no other means of transportation who use our bus system and so i'd like to make sure that their health is protected like everyone else is secondly a home on the center recently in acted a no on no smoking ban in their facility not as a private private facility but they have their signs up now and small penis is not allowed within the bus area and they've got to go around the corner and there's a designated area like mr brown was talking about there is a designated area for which they can go and small but it's not in within the confines of the bus stop itself so i think this is a this is the offshoot of that also find me the only thing that i would like to find out from corp counts and when i can ask him a little bit later is i would like to include the secret c e c great products because that has become very much a part of this smoking trend people are switching over in fact now they've got some new names and they're not even calling cigarettes they have some other commercial names that they're using but any product with vapors that i can affect people's health should be banned from any of our facilities and so that's mister where i could insert that in this this non smoking ban as our bus stops because i think we've done it within our county facility and i like to make sure that it's inclusive of all of our secrets as well as cigarettes and any smoking tobacco products anyone because as vaporous again to me this is the final step and making sure that people's welfare and health from which we are granted access so but i'm sure i thank you very very much for bringing this forward i really do appreciate it and i hope my colleagues can support it again mr goodman did the parks now we want to do this bus stops we've done our public facilities i think we've got it pretty much covered i hope we've covered all the bases as far as smoking and to the smokers out there sorry we're not being well we are we have been a little a little prejudice on what you do because you affect me any remember the days when we used to smoke and used to have what they had in the airlines i can remember playing smoking and nonsmoking and if you said couple rules back of the smoking area you just like you were smoking because the filtration system is one filtration system so i think this is the final step madam chair and so i hope the people of my county my colleagues yourself thank you very much and then we can pass this today mr about this before the meeting he did bring to my attention there was a change in the state statute yes so smoking includes the use of an electronic smoking device in the definition of  smoking if anything we could probably just include that in our definitions area also so we don't need to make a substantial change which it could be done as a friendly amendment sure i mean if if the rest of the cop my colleagues agree to that  so don't we have existing law yes thank you chair not overly familiar with the law but that is my understanding that it would fall under law partially enclosed just on distance of twenty feet right and i don't know what walk between is going to run on another bar patron so does it make sense for us to view other government officials in their scope of duty to be considered also adjudication board the the dean smoking in the premises licensed premises as a violation of law whether or not the police come to sites them if they witness a patron smoking in the bar they would title thirteen while on property under the control in jurisdiction of the parks department but i don't know if there's any bus stops on the parks but as far as those probation in parks th e yes do you want the definition of the east cigarette or do you want it's in the definition of smoking it says smoking clude the use of any cigarette did they define a cigarette yes this could mean if you want that being the case in it i mean it's a section on smoking to include whatever the previous information was to ask corporation console to see how is it that encompasses all our concerns device tobacco products you know what is the third one understand i don't see how it specifically exempted to not be neglect trying smoking device because it's a broad definition any electronic product that can be i don't know if i'm pronouncing that right either and deliver nicotine or other substances to the person healing that from the device believe it will a asthma pump will not be included as an electronic smoking device thank you thank you for being both is that we aka yes or i'm glad you said that because i use an inhaler if the whole idea secondhand smoke why would we ban that from bus stops  this is really smoking any use of tobacco products is very detrimental to people's health and secondary school enhanced is that because you hurt those who don't even smoke so  carrying any lighted or heated tobacco product or plant product intended for inhalation in any manner or in any form smoking includes the use of an electronic smoking device so all the tobacco product has yes you're not unless you're burning it which i don't think that's the best way to ingest it so i don't think i'd be prohibited at the bus stops  their views and what have you and then we can open up for questions if that's ok chair i really appreciate this being brought forward as a general rule and is it's already stated very clearly in our buses themselves that smoking as well as the use of elect electronic tobacco devices of any kind are banned so we have had that as a policy certainly as miss nice pointed out we did  work with the people at queen kamado center which we have a right to enter agreement with because they felt that there were some areas in our bus shelters that were in close proximity to some of the and exits and entry points so just to be clear we did assist queen kamado center and not we were able to get signage up in those bus shelters so as a general rule we didn't have i know we tried for a while but we didn't have any permanent signage in our bus shelters but after the legislation that was pointed out by called to member who comma was actually passed at the state level we were basically asking people if they had any issues with our shelters could they please just you know let us know and cite that particular state law but we did not put up any signage we for a while had temporary signs but they were peeling off and they really didn't work in our shelters so i'm very supportive of this moving forward at all of our bus stops i think for us it's going to be difficult for us to enforce but like many other things when i was sitting where you are on the council we passed laws many times where the public actually is very good about it for cement and when they cite specific areas or they really you know can point to an ordinance or something that's on our signage i think it's really helpful while we do not have any budgeted item in our current budget for this particular expense i did visit with our staff and we will try to find the money within our budget i did get an estimate and sort of a timeline from one of our vendors but i don't want to really presented here because if this does have to go up to procurement i don't want to you know create any kind of an issue where somebody knows in advance what the you know person who's spitting on it is going to fit so i would say it definitely is going to be under ten thousand dollars if it could be under seventy five hundred that would be even better we will try to keep the costs down and in the past with the tobacco free settlement or the i guess the tobacco settlement we did have at one time an offer from the state department of health to help pay for signage but in speaking with miss niece the department gillian lips are who i've worked with before they are a little bit backed up so we will try to see if there is any money that would be available to assist us with this and if we have to take money out of her existing budget and then return to because this is coming out of our sign budget which is usually to replace our science which are quite expensive for bus stops and shelters we would come back to you amendment but we will try and do our best to get this accomplished if you should pass it and we were given a timeline between four and six weeks to be able to start would you give us like three to six months before the completion of that it would be way less than that i would say probably you know for for the vendor because at least one of them  if we're looking at a range just knowing procurement law we would be looking probably a just getting three bits and that is pretty easy to procure so regardless of where you know if we have to take the money out of our budget and then have it replaced by another fund or other resources through application for a grant that we'll deal with but i would say from the time that you actually make the bill effective we could probably do this so that the signage would be in place by october first ok thank you you're welcome mr hall comma so i am happy to hear that from the director chair because i think one of the things we've authorized was  parameters of what the settlement monies can be used for whether enforcement is one of the permitted uses of the settlement money would be interesting to mine how much flexibility this county may have with settlement monies and i will try and get that from mr blitzer he's the gentleman i have been working with and it just depends on how much time you know you give me to do this because as you well know the state it believe it has been sent forward there's are advertising bill which we send forward for advertising in our buses because i believe and i don't know who's committee that's in but that is one of the things where we would actually be able to generate more revenue from the advertising within our buses the other thing is tobacco free partnership is a nonprofit so they do those final finds from violation of the court correct so if that is still standing general of the county and as it hasn't been struck down that why shouldn't we do it for this too you can it would be we just would have to create a process the through legislation thank you so much i would ask that we consider that because i'm tired of making money for the state to our employees were and then end up just being the bill if there's a way there is a belief for us to try and get if we know more ration back regarding this issue thank you thank you any more questions for the director thank you last five years in regards to current smoking laws part of reviewing that we've discovered that we've responded to twenty five calls for service where members of the public have called regarding a smoking incident  of those twenty five calls for service only seven have been resulted in initiating of a police report for whatever reason whether the you know the when the officers responded there was no longer anybody smoking there or what not or no complaint there that would make their report as far as generated things there are three cases made by police officers who responded to other incidents and it looks like what those mostly were as they responded to the calls where people were arguing over someone smoking where they were and supposed to and that's where those cases are documented and there was also only one citation issued in the last five years over that as far as many changes their laws you know were prepared to you know respond to it as we would any other you know complaint for from the public and investigate it thoroughly and respond appropriately but nothing went more beyond just the officer checking up on the situation in iraq then you know documenting the case for the saw him violation when they discovered as it was the cause of the fight that they respond to do so even if they didn't result in a it's part is that typical disorderly call can take anywhere from fifteen minutes to an hour and a half and it usually takes a minimum of two hours are two officers to respond just you know for the safety standpoint it isn't normally more than one person involved this for safety of everybody involved skin good to have at least officers there  any departmental  person violating any of the provisions of this chapter shall be fined not less and twenty five dollars and not more than fifty dollars payable to the county almost always that the state goes to the state  being a civil violation yeah you'd have to change the citation math or other method it would be a notice of violation type method and would have to have some sort of process thank you thank you but the of enforcement actions it would be to the you know i don't think we should all come up for bringing this up when my suggestion is that if we're going to do something like that we should do it in full in other words not just stops but parks and all the other issues that there are all the other proposed bill and we have no comment about the proposed prohibition that being said we are curious about the advent of the cigarettes and i think good for just that our department has not filed or prosecuted any existing smoking smoking in certain area under the molly county code or the hawaii revised statutes our department did not receive any cases regarding the smoking prohibitions under the code or revised statutes our department does not anticipate any real impact of personnel should this bill in its current form be passed by the council first there was no impact on our department by the passing of the smoking ban via the h r s and the second there were no citations for the smoking ban under the h r s or mali county code by the police department or fire department so as you can see without any citations being been issued for smoking tobacco products in prohibited areas we do not beat me there should be any significant increase in a prosecution of violations for the current proposed ordinance should it be passed in its current form  that's from john d kim prosecuting attorney any further this by saying thank you very much to her and i've been very quiet throughout this discussion and i want to thank my colleagues and the experts for all of the information and the comments and whatever i am in a unique situation i'm married to an avid smoker sojourner you're not alone and i go home to have to face his  why don't you guys just about since you look long smoking but you know i'm violently allergic to smoking and my husband's very very considerate and i will be supporting the ordinance and i certainly understand that it is important for us to protect people from secondhand smoke so like i said i won't be giving a whole lot of reasons why i am in support of it but thank you thank you thank you member bison any further comments or questions or what have you you know i would like for us to after listening to our director of transportation as far as before we consider moving this legislation forward if we choose to do so you know we in the proposed bill it says it will be effective upon approval i think we may want to consider  o that this ordinance shall take effect three months or six months so that i know jd the director said october first and yet we're really pushing it  ok so so actually than once we get with the first and second reading we probably don't need to make any motion to to put into effect sixty days i think we're good at that  case i'd like to entertain a motion to revise six section seven of the proposed bill to read this ordinance shall take effect november first twenty fifteen after its  appropriately inserted one electronic smoking device tobacco product smoke or smok about not in favor we have six in favor mr comma excuse one excuse thank you motion carr members at this time i would like to recommend passage and entertain a most motion to recommend passage of the proposed bill and titled a bill for an ordinance amending chapter eight point two zero ma we county code relating