WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — The Board of Health and town health inspector are consulting with town counsel on how best to enforce a ban on smoking in apartment buildings passed by town meeting in May.

 

Although the meeting overwhelmingly approved the new bylaw, the Attorney General's Office in Boston took until December to rule that the restriction, believed to be the first of its kind in Massachusetts, complied with state law and precedent.

 

On Tuesday, Health Inspector Ruth Russell told the board at its monthly meeting that the town's lawyer told her to work on an enforcement policy.

 

She indicated that counsel said some things need to be clarified in the smoking ban.

 

"Their understanding was the bylaw was very clear when it came to enforcement of common areas but very unclear when it came to non-common areas [i.e., residents apartment units]," Russell said.

 

"That would be the issue. If we got complaints about smoking in someone's own unit, town counsel had concerns about how it would go forward. … Could we even get a warrant to inspect, and how do we go down that road."

 

Russell said she would investigate as soon as practical after a complaint is lodged, but given the ephemeral nature of smoke from cigarettes and discharges from vaping products, it would be difficult to prove violations of the ordinance.

 

"It would be tough without direct observation of smoking happening," Russell said.

 

The bylaw, drafted by a resident and introduced to town meeting via citizens' petition, prohibits smoking or vaping of tobacco products inside all multifamily residences with more than four dwelling units. It requires that smoking and vaping be allowed only outside a 25-foot radius of said structures. Such restrictions already are common in publicly-funded housing.

 

The rationale was that "second hand smoke" from tobacco use permeates the walls of apartment buildings and exposes non-smoking residents in adjoining units to health risks.

 

The Board of Health and the Select Board both recommended town meeting's passage of the ban.

 

On Tuesday, BOH Chair Devan Bartels agreed to join Russell in future discussions with town counsel as an enforcement regimen is developed.

 

In other business on Tuesday, the board heard an update from Russell about an initiative to restrict the sale of nitrous oxide canisters in town. She said she received a draft of legislation that state Rep. John Barrett III is advancing on Beacon Hill and was reconciling that language with the text of an ordinance passed in Northampton.

 

Given the pace of legislation in Boston, Barrett's office advised that the Board of Health should continue to develop its own local regulation in the wake of concerns raised by a resident in mid-December.

 

"We could be nimble and regulate this at the local level," said Bartels, who did not attend the December meeting. "I think it's completely appropriate we do so. There is only upside and no downside I can see to regulating the recreational use of nitrous oxide."

 

Russell said she would try to get a local Board of Health regulation drafted in time to post a public hearing at the board's February meeting.

 

For the second straight month, the board declined any interest in pursuing a local regulation requiring installation of hands-free options to open doors in public restrooms. A resident had asked the board to consider requiring the door hardware, marketed under trade names like "StepNPull," to give peace of mind to restroom users who have no way of knowing whether previous restroom occupants washed their hands before touching a doorknob.

 

The board members cited the lack of studies supporting the installation of hands-free openers as a public safety measure.