Work Session

Good evening everyone and welcome to the June 23rd council work session. And at this time I'll recognize our interim manager Russ Overton.

Thank you mayor. Um good evening council. Uh tonight's agenda, we're going to review the meeting schedule and then we're going to go over two council initiated items on eBike safety and our um smokefree ordinance updates and uh then we'll have a close session after that. I don't have any updates. So, I'm going to turn it over to Jenny, I believe, to walk through the upcoming calendar.

Okay. So, we have um tonight and then Thursday and then we go into July and we moved our July standalone work session to the 21st followed by Thursday [music] the 23rd work session plus a regular meeting. I stopped there because um I'd been asked to look at dates for the quarterly to change up the quarterly dates and I had emailed two out August the 18th and August the 20th. I've heard back that August 20th did not work for um council members and so now I just proposed August the 18th. I wanted to make sure that was okay.

Good with me.

Jenny, I just have to check my daughter's schedule because um we will be in DC around that time. So, is it okay if I could take one or two days to kind of talk to her and get back to you? Um yes and we also can um find ways for you to participate as well, you know, as well if you wanted to call in or something.

Okay.

Too.

Um all right. Well, that was easier than expected. Glad it worked out. [gasps and laughter] Good.

Next, I wanted to talk to you about possible joint meetings. Um, so you know throughout the year we do meet with other municipalities and for networking but also for project updates and also we hear from you all

that you'd like to meet with other municipalities. And so we just wanted to take some time tonight and see like is this list you want us to work on? Are there others that are missing from the list? This is kind of what we heard from you throughout conversations throughout meetings and there is a Morrisville Apex. We put those together because they um of the utilities and there is a change to the utility billing I believe that um we would need to update them on. [snorts] And then Holly Springs just continuing that conversation u from a meeting that we had last year

especially since we're doing a wastewater study with them. with Holly with all three

with Holly Springs.

With Holly Springs. Okay, that's

obviously provide utilities for Morrisville and then Apex is a partner,

right?

I think I got that right, Jim.

Yes, he's giving the thumbs up.

Yeah, Holly Springs was originally water and sewer or just sewer?

Just waste water.

Yeah, just waste water.

And uh then they went away and now they want to come back. All right. Well, we will reach out to these um entities and then kind of talk about syncing up the calendars, but it probably won't be, you know, till later in the fall or um later in the year.

All right, I bring up Chief and Cassie. [snorts] Well, this is such an easy topic. I'm going to let Cassie do the whole thing all by herself. [laughter]

Oh, thank you so much.

Just kidding. Just kidding. Well, mayor and council, thank you very much. We're coming back together uh based upon a council initiated item that

uh Councilwoman Bonsel and uh Brittany Richards uh brought to us and asked for some feedback on the whole issue of ebikes and some of the problems that it's creating in the community and kind of just get a little bit of education and give you some more information associated with that. And that request was made around April 16th. Some of the key considerations we're going to look at this evening are the rapid growing market of electric mobility devices. You know, a couple of years ago, about three years ago, we started talking about ebikes on greenways and that type of thing. And at that time, we were only talking about bicycles. Uh now that market has grown tremendously with the improvements and batteries and that sort of thing. So, we're going to talk about the different types of electronic mobility devices and, you know, what regulations and things kind of go with that. Then, we're going to look at neighboring communities and uh see what they're attempting to and how they're attempting to address those issues. And then we're going to talk about exploring education enforcement and what that may or may not look like as we go forward. An outline. Uh we're going to specifically talk about the mobility devices and the regulations, what Car's actions been to date, what the other municipal responses have been, and then a possible approaches and to address the concerns. So what is an electronic mobility device and what are the regulations? Well, here are three, believe it or not, different types of electronic devices. One is a moped, [clears throat] one is an ebike, and one is an electric motorcycle.

Anybody want to guess which one is which?

The one on the left is an ebike, the one in the middle is an e- moped, and the next one is an e- motorcycle.

Under the North Carolina general statutes, there are some definitions on what an electric [snorts] assisted bicycle is and what a moped is and what a motorcycle is. And without getting too technical, um we typically in law enforcement, we focus on speeds, how fast the vehicle will go. Uh but an ebike is basically no greater than 750 watts of of power on the motor. and it uh can only um the maximum speed is 20 miles an hour on a flat surface. Uh if you're looking at a moped, it's a vehicle that will go over 30 miles an hour uh and uh on a level surface. If it goes over that, then there are consequence associated with that. than a motorcycle in and it of itself uh you know it uh is just when it hits that that extra speed and and you start getting into the category of a true vehicle that is governed by state statute and you have to register and those type things. I'm going to talk specifically about that here in just a second. Under our city code, we mirror pretty much the general statute. And so as we define vehicles, we're looking at electric assisted bic bicycle shall mean the same as it's pro provided in that statute I was just showing you. And we do that um so that when the general statutes or the the the legislature decides to change a statute, we still remain consistent without having to come back and change our ordinances and things. We want to be very consistent with that. And so again, just to to walk through this, an assisted bicycle is it can be powered uh only at 20 m per hour on a level surface by throttle only. That's without pedals. uh but functional pedals are required on that. The maximum

speed of a uh moped is 30 mph when p powered by throttle only. But some of the mopeds now have pedals as well. Some are functional, some are not functional. Uh and then the motorcycle will go greater than 30 mph and uh powered only by throttle, but some do have functional pedals as we saw in those previous pictures. So if it's a bicycle then there is no minimum age. U a helmet is required for anyone under the age of 16 but no driver's license is required. No registration is required for the vehicle or for the bike. On a moped you have to be a minimum of 16 years of age. A helmet is required. There is no driver's license required, but registration and insurance is required on that device. And then with a motorcycle minimum age 16, you have to have a helmet, you have to have a driver's license, you also have to have a motorcycle endorsement, plus you have to have registration and insurance. [clears throat] Where are they allowed? Right now we allow uh ebikes on our greenways, sidewalks and roadways. They are not uh mopeds are not allowed on greenways or sidewalks, but they are allowed on the roadways that are speed limits are less than 55 miles hour. Motorcycles, they're not allowed on the greenways or sidewalks, but they're allowed on the road roadway just like any other motorcycle. And under under our ordinance, it's unlawful to operate an electric assisted bicycle on any town greenway provided it's lawful to do that provided that it is being propelled at least partially by human power. In other words, your legs got to be working on that thing. Uh

whether you're actually providing power or you're just faking it, we can't tell. [laughter] And so there are other mobility devices that we have to consider when we're looking at this broader scope of devices. And you've got scooters, you've got one- wheeled vehicles, you've got electronic skateboards, you've got hoverboards, and you've got Segways. And uh other mobility devices are already recognized in state statute. Um, a personal assisted mobility device is a self-balancing device. Uh, not non uh tandem two-wheel device designed to transport one person with propulsion system and but the speed has to be 15 miles per hour or less. Uh you have electronic personal assistance mobility devices that may be uh operated on public highways, but the speed limit can only be 25 miles hour or less. And then municipalities have the authority to govern where these vehicles can go. [snorts] We are pretty fortunate and Cassie and the team been working with the the greenway advisory board and they have found that our uh distributors of electronic devices like this are pretty uh responsible. They pretty much explain the laws, explain the differences to their customers. But we also have to deal with uh Amazon. You have to deal with other providers that come from other areas. And so you you really have to be very careful and it's very confusing because how we define something in Carrie may not be the same as how it's defined in Wake Forest or how it's defined in Apex and that sort of thing. So when we get into the education pieces, I think Cassie will talk a little bit about some of

those differences and how they may or may not align. In this case, uh, a lot of times the kids are looking for a more aggressive looking uh, bike, uh, that looks more like a motorcycle. Well, here's another example of that. This is a an aggressive looking looks really good. It feels like it's like right in between a motorcycle and a bicycle, but this one goes 35 miles an hour. That makes it a motorcycle. And so, it can be very confusing to families. Now when we talked about the greenways earlier, we mainly focused on the three types of electric bicycles and we still have those class one, two, and three. And um there is some legislation being proposed about this, but there's like three different pieces of legislation and none of them apparently are moving forward too quickly through the the legislative process. But a class one, we kind of talked a little bit about this, is pedal assist only. Mean otherwise, it doesn't go on its own power. Uh, and it's uh only up to 20 mph. Pedal assist or throttle only for a class two and a maximum throttle only power is 20 mph. And then class 3, which is pedal assist only. And uh the maximum speed on that is 28 mph. The police bikes that we have are the class three.

Where does that classification come from?

Uh it's actually a nationally recognized standard and it's recognized in uh some uh uh national programs uh government programs but also in legislative action in other states and that sort of thing. And that's one of the reasons why some bills have been appro have been proposed to just recognize the differences in these. So, [sighs] uh, and I've talked a little bit about this. This is what, uh, NC

House Bill 1094 being proposed is, and it just talks about the differences between those. It talks about the 750 watts, the speed limitations, and it's all consistent with what we pretty much already have. And with that, Cassie gets to talk a little bit about what we're doing.

Thank you, Chief Salt. Good evening, Mayor. Good evening, council members. Um, so I'm going to cover what we've been doing to date and tonight, believe it or not, is not the first time that we've talked about ebikes. So, council actually directed staff in 2022 to conduct a pilot program and I think council member Bush brought that to to staff and so we conducted a pilot program to allow ebikes on our greenway systems. Prior to that, they were not allowed. that that program ran from 2022 to 2024 where we made that ordinance amendment change permanent. And after the or ordinance change was was made permanent to allow ebikes on our greenways, we conducted the greenway safety campaign. And during that time, we did education with our community. Um we engaged them in surveys and and feedback about the use of greenways and it really focused on all users of the greenways, not just on ebikes. One of the examples from that time of signs that we put out were, you know, similar to this. So, really focusing on safety and etiquette on how to use and share the greenway with not just bicycles, but with walkers and runners as well as people with pets. So, this other side shows how to manage your pet safely on the greenway. And we're use we're continuing to use this information today with our safety and etiquette on their our greenway system. I think council member Bonsel, there was a greenway committee meeting maybe about a year or so ago and we wanted and we were talking about bringing more of this information back to the public just to continue that education piece. Um during that time during those two years there was no significant incident on our greenway during that campaign or the

pilot program. Um that's that safety campaign did cost about $200,000 and we've seen we're going to cover what other municipalities are doing and updating their ordinances but Kerry today already has a lot of ordinance in place with similar with similar regulations. So um as Chief Salt mentioned we already define ebikes at and reference the general statute for ebike definition. We allow ebikes on greenways and sidewalks. We have a speed limit of 15 miles per hour on our greenways. And we also then recognize for sidewalks that users should use reasonable and do caution on the on the sidewalks and give right away to pedestrians. We again follow the state law to require anyone under the age of 16 to wear a helmet. And then we prohibit motorcycles and and mopeds on our sidewalks and our greenways. And anyone using the roadway system still has to follow the this the state laws for the road system. So even on the bicycle, we asked the other day, "If I ran the stop sign on my bicycle, would you give me a ticket?" The answer is yes. Um and then also we post then rules and regulations for our greenways at our trail heads and at at the at the start of a greenway trail. You acknowledging that if you're passing to announce yourself saying I'm on your left again that we have the speed limit of 15 miles per hour. Um giving right ofway to walkers and runners and then also keeping your pet on a short leash and picking up after your pet. And we continue to do ongoing education. So, not just through the greenway safety campaign um and continuing education on how to safely use our greenway system, but Kerry Police has also developed infographics and shared information on social media regarding the differences of devices and also the rules of the road. We've also added this information to our website. So, on the on the bike carry education web page and we're also

doing in-person events with HOAs upon request and through enforcement. We've done targeted enforcement using our mobile cameras. Um, and Kerry Police has responded to over 200 C 200 calls for service since January of 2025. And we've also investigated four crashes involving ebikes on the roadway since January of 2025. Cherry or Chief, is there anything you would want to mention beyond that?

Uh, no. Uh we're seeing more and more complaints from particularly these additional devices that go faster and kids uh gathering up in groups and um we have uh Councilwoman Bonsil and I attended a uh session at the Carolina Preserve that was very well attended uh and uh that was the biggest concern but it was also greenways and on the street where some of these behaviors are occurring.

Thank you. So I'm glad you said that because um in the presentation we're focusing only on greenways but the issues um there there are three things. The issues that we're experiencing they are not like you know they're kids and they're under 16 most likely. Um they're not driving ebikes. They're really driving mopeds and the vehicle that is going faster than 30 miles an hour. and um and um they're on roads and they're on sidewalks. So, I didn't see these things covered in the presentation.

It's there's still some more slides. Yeah, I think you'll see some more.

We're going to touch base a little bit more on that. A little bit more on force and hold that thought because that's an important one of where you're seeing the calls as well.

Yeah.

Yeah. because today we have a we have a mile per hour a speed limit on our greenways but we don't have that on on a on their sidewalks where other municipalities are doing that. So I'll cover more of that.

So one more clarification on the previous slide you mentioned that all

ebikes um are allowed on greenways with with a speed limit of 15 miles per hour um and stuff. So that's all three classifications are allowed or just any particular

just class one, two, and three of ebikes, but the mopeds and the mo e- motorcycles are not allowed.

Okay. Yep. You're getting ahead. So we'll we'll do that comparison. [laughter] All right. So now we've seen in the news quite a bit um other municipalities and what they're doing around um ebikes and also e- motorcycles on their within their transportation network. So, Holly Springs, um, they recently updated their ordinance. They already had a a 50 m per hour speed limit on their greenways. They've added that to sidewalks. In within their ordinance, they are defining ebikes as a maximum speed of 20 miles per hour. So, they're excluding class 3 from their ordinance. Um, they they also define personal conveyance vehicles. So, what Chief Salt mentioned before about the different mobility devices that are out there, they're they've gone ahead and defined that within their ordinance. They do allow.

You said excluding class three ebikes. Does it specifically say that or does it just say max speed of 20?

Do you

um I'll have to go back and check. Um

by definition it does, but I was just curious because some ordinances that I've read say class one, class two, or class three, not saying well class one is this speed and

yeah,

throttle, you know, this one's throttle. I have a copy of it so I'll look and tell you before the [laughter]

And you're probably highlighting how does one know the difference to enforce it unless they're doing something

right. That's exactly what I was going to get to. Yeah.

Yeah. Um so they define or sorry um so the [clears throat] all of those devices are allowed then on ebikes and the personal conveyance devices are allowed on their greenways and their sidewalks. They did create a penalty schedule that includes fines, impoundments, as well as

forfeertures and misdemeanor charges in their ordinance and that's something that we would like to talk more about with you as we get towards the end of the presentation. Um, and again they're dedicating a their web page and doing more videos and infographics on social media. And then they've also scheduled um different ebike engagement sessions. So they have their final one coming up at at the end of July for Wake Forest. They also recently updated their their ebike language and um e e device language. They have a distinction between ebikes with no pedals and electric assisted bikes that have functional pedals. They also define motorized scooters as those being gas or electric and um and have a maximum speed of 15 miles hour. They do exclude all ebikes and motorized scooters from sidewalks. And they have a speed limit of 10 miles per hour on their greenway system. And they've also um you can see here updated their web p web web page and are using different infographics to help the community understand the differences between these devices. And then Raleigh Raleigh's actually been talking about motorized devices on their greenway system since the since 1990s, the 1990s. Um they have a a dedicated six officer Greenway unit. They also have a greenway volunteer program where you can volunteer to look out for safety or security issues as well as maintenance issues on the greenways and work with the police department and the parks, recreation, and cultural resources department within Raleigh. Um, their definition um includes ebikes that can go up to 20 miles per hour maximum and they do limit it to to class one. um their ebikes are or e ebikes in Raleigh are allowed on greenways and on sidewalks and they do allow for motorized scooters but they're prohibited from riding on greenways or on sidewalks and then their greenway system has a maximum speed limit of 10 miles per hour. So then just looking at

this in summary you can see everyone treats the different classes a little bit different or allows them in different capacities. Everyone allows ebikes on their greenway system. Um, everyone except for Wake Forest allows ebikes on their sidewalks. And then all of the devices are allowed on the streets, but again, rules of the road apply to to using these devices on on our street network. Um, the other devices, Kerry and Raleigh don't allow other devices on our greenway system. So, so no motorized scooters are allowed on our greenway system. Um, they are allowed on our streets and our sidewalks. You can see Holly Springs and Wake Forest allow those devices on their on their greenways and um then Wake Forest not on their sidewalks.

Why would we why would we allow ebikes on our greenways but not motorized scooters?

I don't I'm not sure. We can find out the answer and provide that to you. or Sandy Jew heaven. No,

I believe all motorized vehicles of all kinds when we first started looking at the greenways were prohibited

and then when we did the pilot program, it was just for ebikes

and then council made the decision to extend that.

Yeah, I don't even remember discussing.

Yeah, it just seems unusual. [clears throat]

Is is there

the last couple of years this has really exploded in popularity.

Sure. And I think that's why you're seeing so much of it.

Well, and I'll be upfront. You know, I think children ride scooters by and large until they [clears throat] started renting them and then, you know, that blew up and they were zoom zooming around on rental scooters all over the place in cities. But is it allowable? Was it lawful for us to to make rules based off of age? For example, no one under the age of 16 is allowed to ride an ebike on any public

greenway, sidewalk, or street in the town of Kerry. Would that be legal to do it by age?

We could do it for greenways. For streets and sidewalks, we'd have to look at what the legislature has set as age limits and things like that. It may be preempted from having stricter regulations than the legislature does on streets,

I think,

and sidewalks. But for greenways, we have more flexibility.

So, okay. So, we do have more flexibility to potentially do it by age because I've not seen a whole lot of people fussing about

30 year olds on ebikes. It's primarily seems to be young men. I follow a couple of pediatric ER doctors on social media and they beg parents, do not buy your child an electric scooter or an electric bike. Um, and unfortunately I think a lot of municipalities will be in a position to not do anything about that until unfortunately a child is very seriously injured or you know it's just like three-wheelers when growing up. I don't know how jawurn three-wheelers came out, but [laughter]

but Cararissa, you know, you're right. Um, Apex [clears throat]

Apex started discussing this. They don't have an ordinance or anything yet, but they this is one of the things that's on the table for discussion that whether you know the age restriction should be applied because the majority of the issues and chief and I have discussed this in detail like when the whole episode was going on it's mostly like you know the younger ones

and I think they just want to have fun and this is their way of having fun which is dangerous for them and for others. Oh, yeah. I had I had a motorcycle growing up and a and a go-kart. Trust me, I know how much fun it is to whip around on those with my sister sitting on the the, you know,

on the front. No helmet

in front of me. No, she had a helmet on that was smacking me in it. My dad's demolition derby helmet on.

It was profoundly stupid. And we're lucky we're in one piece.

I think I think the caution should be on

limiting age and trying to define age. It should be behavioral focused, not age focused. Uh, a lot of the street takeovers that we see are both gas and electric motorcycles as well as uh some of the mopeds and things that go on, you know, where they go on the interstate, they do all of that. That's going on in Raleigh from time to time. Uh, and we're likely to see that increase um, you know, those type things increase. So, the street takeovers are not just the cars and everything you see on YouTube and the big stories. They occur in smaller groups of 10, 15, much like we're seeing right now with some of our younger kids, but it also involves adults as well. Oh,

okay.

And you're going to get to in a couple slides and I'll let you get there, but

you know where where [clears throat] do you want to be between you can have the regulation between education and enforcement, right? I think that's probably where you want to get part of the discussion because

um regardless of what you have with scooters um you can educate but if they're out there doing it and the PD is not there it's not being enforced or how heavy-handed do you wish it to be enforced?

Well, and who do you enforce? And I when you brought that up, the first thing I thought is so a 16year-old or a 15year-old gets pulled over there

for not wearing a helmet or riding too fast or whatever, who gets the ticket,

right? How do you

and is that on their record or does the parent I mean, how does all that work?

Let alone just confirming their age to begin with, you know, because they don't they don't you know, if they don't need to have a driver's license for this and we said it's 16. Well, I mean, any uh enterprising 16-year-old is going to claim to be 14,

right? 6' [laughter] one,

but yeah, but they're all still minors. So, how does that

Well, there are processes in the law for us to deal with that.

Okay.

Uh, you know, juveniles and and there are different stipulations based upon traffic offenses. What is the offense? What is the behavior? One of the things

I caution about the age is if they're doing the right thing and wearing the helmet, how are we going to know what they look like uh other than how big they are? And there are big little 30 year olds and big 14 year olds. [laughter] Uh so, you know, all of that plays into how you reasonably enforce the thing. And the answer is both the individual doing the illegal behaviors and the parents if they're a juvenile can be responsible under the right conditions.

Okay. And the other thought I had as you're going through this and sorry we might maybe we need to

probably listen there's two slides left.

Just the idea that you know adding ampl you know the electrification of the bike just amplifies the speed. Yeah. It just amplifies the bad behavior. And so from, [clears throat] you know, and if they don't have skills already to go at a maybe a slow um rate of speed, to go at a faster rate of speed, and if you don't have the skill set, you have some of the things you're talking about, crashes, etc. So, I really like how you were leaning heavily into not just education and awareness, but maybe maybe there's something we need to do from an education perspective. I remember we talked about partnering with nonprofits to do, you know, some trainings on, you know, best practices and how to improve school skills and that sort of thing. So, I like how you're leaning heavily into the education side. How would we partner with um the schools SRO's?

That's an interesting topic because we try to do that on a number of things here. If you just look at this board and we say we go to Kerry High School or we go to a middle school and you say, "Okay, we want to go and present a program." Well, we have people feeding into those schools from all these jurisdictions.

So, I see.

Where's your consistency? And that's why,

you know, when we get to a couple of these slides, we're going to talk about next steps and we need to do a little bit more research on what we look like because I personally at this point want to mirror the state statute as much as we can for consistency and education and that type of thing.

Uh, but we'll get to that.

And so, just the last thing on here, um, you see us along with Holly Springs have a speed limit of 15 miles per hour. Um, Holly Springs has extended that onto their sidewalks. And then with Raleigh and Wake Forest, they have a speed limit of 10 miles an hour. You [clears throat] mentioned Apex earlier, Council Member Bonsel, and they have a speed limit of 10 miles per hour on their greenway system. And then Morrisville follows ours because we connect with one another.

And you may want to add because we talked about this. Um, you set the speed limit with whatever you wish. It still has to be potentially enforced

to monitor it. So 10, 15, 20, whatever you want to make it. um they're going to have to have the technology to then monitor it or the or the amount of folks to do that. So it's I don't I don't want to mean it's somewhat arbitrary but we just need to think about again carrot and stick.

Yes.

All right. So possible approaches to addressing these. So there's really three areas that we can focus on. So the first one being education which we've talked a little bit about. Um then regulations. So updating our code of ordinances and our and our rules. Um and then also enforcement. So, for education, you we're proposing we can we can do a dedicated web page to continue to compile this information and put that out there for the public to consume. Um, we can continue our social media posts. Um, there's also opportunities, although we'd have to look at budgets for videos, doing additional signage and flyers. Um, we can go out to public engagement events as well as festivals and do and do demos. Um, we also have the great relationships with our local bike shops and our nonprofit partners. So, we have carry-on bikes now operating in in

Kerry, and they've been a good partner putting out a lot of good information into into the public to continue the education portion around what these devices are and where they're allowed. For regulations, we could look at setting or amending the speed limits on both the greenways as well as the sidewalks. Um, and we could limit the the ebike access or or the different types of ebikes. Um we could continue we could look at defining other mobility devices and how they are allowed or not allowed in our system and also establishing penalties and that's again where um Holly Springs I think a good portion of what they did they focused on definitions where the devices are allowed and but a big portion of what they did for an update was was establishing penalties. Um so then that goes into a for enforcement of looking at well what is what is the fines or what's the implic implication if you're not following these regulations? um what's the potential for empalment or for forfeertures? Um can we do more data informed targeted enforcement? So using the cameras looking at even our e-counters of you are we seeing speeding on the on the greenway system specifically and then you in the future maybe you consider adding a carry police greenway unit.

Yeah, there are a couple of different things here uh when we talk about establishing penalties. We have a 15 mph speed limit on our greenways, but it's basically uninforceable. And it's not just because even if we detect someone and we catch them doing 30 miles an hour, there's nothing in our ordinance that is a penalty or anything associated with that. And so there's really nothing we can do except ban them from the greenway and order them off. And that's the same as uh with someone that's reck recklessly endangering. uh we really there's really not a statute for us to charge that has penalties associated with it on the greenway. So, we do think that there is some work to do there. And everything that we talk about here, there's a budget number that comes with that. You know, whether it's technology and putting more cameras on the greenway,

particularly in those high complaint areas, uh, or whether it's overtime to pay officers to go and train them and have them as extra duty go out there and patrol or whatever we do. The education piece, I think we talked about during the initial greenway thing, was well into the six digits. uh to just put that together. So there are some impacts associated with it.

And so as you look at what potential next steps could be, we do propose con you creating that dedicated web page to for one place to consolidate this information. Um continuing the social media campaigns and we've continued to do that from the greenway safety campaign to today talking about how to how to share the road with one another and um and proper etiquette. you as well as police putting out more information on on devices as well as in enforcements of those and then potentially drafting ordinance amendment language focused on establishing penalties, defining other mobility devices, looking potentially at speed limits on sidewalks and at jurisdictional boundaries. I think one thing that is unique in our system is the American Tobacco Trail. And when you ride the American debt back trail through Kerry, the speed limit is 15 because our greenways are 15 miles per hour. But when you get to Apex and when you get to Durham and into Wake County, the speed limit is 10 because their speed limit is 10. So you could look at, you know, specifying speed limits in on specific portions of of our greenway within our greenway system to match other jurisdictions.

Yeah. the uh when we look at the the real problem behind this, it's behavior focused. It it that's really what we're talking about. Someone who's not paying attention to the safety of others or someone who's getting out. When we had the the community meeting out at Carolina Preserve, it was the behavior of driving the vehicle, but it was just as much of the behavior of the kids that

were how they were talking to the adults and how they were just, you know, they were just pretty much abusive to them,

uh, calling them names and that type of thing. And, you know, you can't do anything to me and then they turn around and take off on their bike. Um, and so the behaviors are one of the things that we really need to focus on. The most important thing is parental responsibility. It's really up to the parents. Can we talk to the parent, say, "Hey, here we've identified your child. Take a look at this. If we have video or whatever, and talk with them, try to give them a warning first. But at the end of the day, we're going to hold them accountable. If they're creating potential harm to another citizen and that sort of thing, we're going to hold them accountable. We do have statutes that will allow us to if we've got somebody's reckless driving on the street uh endangering other people, we can charge that individual either in juvenile or through the normal court system and we can seize that bike now as evidence and let the court determine what we do with that even without a a town ordinance associated with that and we have done so. Uh but what we try to do is do it through education because a lot of this is just new technology that has flooded the market and it has given an outlet to risky behaviors.

So that is my last slide. So if there's other items you want to talk about or if there if you have feelings on any of this or other items that you'd like to see us um evaluate, we'd love to hear your thoughts. I think the key point what chief u you mentioned that it's the age and it's the type of vehicle. So the education um and I said this to Russ one day. I think what we have to kind of try enforcing from an education perspective is not what is allowed but what is not allowed on our streets and I think those are the motorbikes and you know mopeds that's what the root cause of the problem is and there are a lot of people

who are exhibiting great behavior there are kids who who are doing a good job and we do not want to penalize them for the ones that are not following the rules So I would trust what you bring and I like your, you know, your thought process that you want to keep it to the state legislature so that the enforcement and the education becomes easier and we can find different partners like what you said. So I I like what I what I heard today.

Well, there are some modifications we would like to explore.

Okay.

And maybe present a few options. Um, but still we would want it consistent. If if we're going to have a 15 mph speed limit, let's figure out what's the best way to be able to technically enforce it or at least have some type of response to meet community expectations. And then if we stop somebody and they're not being nice and they're not being polite and they have one of these behaviors, we want to be able to hold them accountable. And right now, right [clears throat] now, that's

and they're doing vies.

Yes.

Yes, they are. Since we're um talking behavior um because it's really about behavior change and awareness um we could we make sure to check in with the transportation working group.

Yeah.

And those folks didn't get because those are all transportation knowledgeable folks. And do you think there's anything that we can leverage or learn from way back when when we did the opioid work that was all about behavior too?

Um is there something we can learn from that and leverage it here

potentially? I would I would need to explore that more. Um Chief S.

I think you know whenever we do problem solving project what we do is we try to reach out try not to re recreate the mousetrap. We want to go find somebody's got a good one and you know plagiarism is perfectly legal in police work. [laughter] So we want to try to find out what the good ideas and and bridge off of those.

And it doesn't matter if it's in the opioid crisis or if it's in human trafficking or if it's in any other educational campaign. There are some basics there in problem based learning that uh we should adopt and uh we should look at. So the answer the short answer is yes. I and I really um really appreciate um Council Member Con Johnson's discussion about how kids are getting hurt at a much higher and increased rate. And I don't think that parents are aware of that. And I think, you know, as scary as those numbers are, if I had a kid that age now that wanted that, that would um set me back to start looking up more data. So I think anytime you can leverage some, you know, data in informed decision making and share it with our really smart residents,

yeah,

maybe that would help.

And I'm I'm an optimist and really think that, you know, would like to think that parents really care about their kids and that sort of thing. Some of them are using these devices as to a way to get the the child out of the house. We actually stopped one one child on a motorcycle and we actually seized it one of the e- motorcycles. Um met with the family, talked with the family and their response was to go out and buy them a bigger e- motorcycle.

So, you know, so there they're all levels that we need to target on this.

Okay. I would just um point this back to our greenway committee. They actually did um have a discussion about this So Cassie, if you can also incorporate some of their suggestions. They were in favor of, you know, maintaining the ebikes on our greenways but with obviously some changes. So if you could please look at that suggestion, John, you would be able to give that, right? Okay. Thanks. I

I was going to suggest that, you know, there's there was plenty of times where as a very busy parent with a child, I was she wanted me to buy her the thing

that her friends had.

Mhm. Um, I'm not an expert on all the things that her friends had. If I had a resource that I could look at and say a list of these particular ebikes are not allowed on sidewalks and greenways and for use in children under 16. I think that would at least help. I keep hearing parents don't know, you know, maybe if we did a little bit of that due diligence and created a list of I I I don't want to endorse acceptable. You know, here's what is allowed. Here is a list of ebikes that are not allowed on our greenways like that one you showed, which by the way looked like the Honda XR80 I had in 1979 or whatever it was, right? um [clears throat] that at the very least would be a resource when we're trying to educate. Um I I'm a big believer in knowing what not to do is 51% of the battle. So giving examples of what not to buy your 12year-old I think would would be a good resource to be able to share with people.

Yeah. And the consequences that go along with that.

Correct.

Yeah.

Yeah. And I I don't want to shame any of the parents. I No. I remember when I was doing my own research as someone who has two ebikes, I remember looking online and doing ebike on Amazon, etc. And the first, you know, five or six, and I just checked again, the first five or six, none of them were actually ebikes. They were all mopeds, right? So, I, you know, I want to give, you know, them a little bit of grace. If you don't know any of this, you don't even know realize you're making, you know,

I totally agree. I I think we're battling ignorance first and foremost that I I think it's just this I mean we've sat through an entire presentation with how many slides trying to distinguish between classes of ebikes versus mopeds versus motorcycles. It's very confusing. Um so I'm supportive of all of the next steps here. I would be curious to put a dollar figure to more

greenway signs. You know, as someone who uses my greenway very frequently, I think it's just such a great tool to educate the exact audience we're trying to educate. Um, I mean, I would be most curious interested in maybe establishing the penalties and then maybe that's part of the educational campaign. Um, you know, I know we'd like to put a friendly carry spin on it, but you know, like a click it or ticket kind of campaign, you know, where you really enforce that, uh, you know, this this is what the expectations are and these are the penalties, you know, because I think if kids knew they were in jeopardy of their parents knowing and losing their bike, that that would be pretty motivating. Um, and Council Member Bonsal, I agree that our schools, and I understand, Chief, this crossjurisdictional uh issue makes it tricky, but our schools are the such an ideal ideal vehicle for disseminating this information. I know that the middle school my children attend, their principal included our new infographic flyer in one of our weekly e newswsletter um that goes out every Sunday. And so I'm curious, I should actually ask him. It sounds like he did that. Maybe he he came across it and just included himself, but it wasn't maybe a coordinated campaign. But I mean, something like that would be pretty lowhanging fruit for the principles to just plug that into, you know, all those weekly communications that go out. Um, so I think there's got to be some way to leverage leverage our schools.

And I think the flyer that you shared on the social media, I believe it was very widely shared across the board. So people appreciated that information and I would agree with our mayor prom Bush that you know we don't want to shame the parents because it's lack of knowledge and education. I saw some posts on Facebook after like we started the education campaign. The parents were

asking which bike should we buy for our children? We don't want them to get hurt or be on the wrong side. So I think it's working. We just have to kind of start pushing this uh material more. I when I went to the North Carolina ebike um online summit um that they had, they actually talked about a study that was done in Los Angeles where they um had all the te or all the principles from all the high schools in Los Angeles, kind of like a point in time study who went out and looked at all the bikes

and 90% of them were illegal ebikes. They were not actually bikes that fit the class one or class two or class.

I believe it's our high schools in Kerry have prohibited them from being driven to school.

I think they have started this again like I think I saw this somewhere a post that they have allowed some bikes to come on the campus.

They may be looking at it the same way we do. But my point here is that there's a lot of people interested in the exact same topic that we're dealing with. Yeah,

we can always leverage great things. No,

maybe an online quiz that we can

just one last

group might be able to create.

Just one last point, uh, is one of the directors when we had our department head meeting earlier this week brought up that, you know, they're on the the greenway a good bit. It's not just the ebikes and the e assisted, you know, electric assisted bikes. There are bicycles that are traveling greater than the speed limit and a lot of times they're traveling in groups just doing a cross-country ride or whatever

and that makes a lot of pedestrians nervous.

And so the behavior focus is is really where we want to get into. If it's a if the speed is the risk, then it really doesn't matter if it's a gas or if it's electric or it's pedal. It's the behavior that's creating the risk to the public. So how do we address that? And that's some of the things we want to look into.

Yeah. I I I was thinking something

interesting if maybe uh we can find some creative ways to give the writers some signs cuz I saw the uh signs like that because a lot of words because maybe a lot of people drive so fast write so fast they won't see what is on that board. What if we can make a cartoon like police officer shape

of like like the turtle?

Watch your traffic.

Yes. Like that. And it's not a real

You got your speed.

Yeah. [laughter]

You have to,

you know, like when you're going too fast in the school zone where it says, you know, [laughter]

your speed is

and it's like if it's roadway signs, it's more about changing them because you you always get some behavioral [clears throat] change when it's new. Yes.

Or changed. And y'all do that very well with in transportation this as well. When you lay down the loop detector and the your speed is but once it stays too long,

people kind of ignore it. So you move it around all the time.

Yeah.

Or you keep riding bike to see how high you can get

or that or that

which is [laughter] what we would have done as kids. That just would have been a

How fast can you run? Yeah.

I think now we're just having fun here. Sorry. [laughter] Sorry.

But normally people when they see a police police car, they will speed down

like so. If you see [laughter] a a fake cartoon police officer standing over there chief salt all [laughter]

can be a cartoon chief.

Now you're talk now you're talking about littering.

What? One last thought because I I think this was in a very preliminary conversation that Susan had also suggested perhaps leveraging Kerry Teen Council and doing some peer-to-peer education. And so I don't know precisely what that would look like, but just reminding us that that's a resource too

and creating a Tik Tok. [laughter]

The ISB would love to weigh in if you want to bring it to the ISAB.

So these it sounds like everybody's in agreement with these next steps. Do we need a motion or we just I don't think anybody back.

You're not suggesting use any money or

anything like that if you know we're trying to work within the means we have.

And so when will we see this again?

Right.

What we say September, October?

Let's say this fall.

Yeah. Okay. [laughter]

Fall of this year.

Yeah.

Yes. Fall of fall of

specifically ordinance amendments.

Yeah. Okay.

Yeah. Because we'll continue to do the education. we can we can stand up a website um and we can look at at to see how much additional signage would cost to

we're going to continue enforcing and and that sort of thing and our preference is to try to educate first unless the behavior is just so egregious that we need to take immediate action.

The other thing chief if I recall um and especially as you went to these meetings is to tell people to let you know when it's happening.

Call the non-emergency line.

Yes.

Specifically, just to maybe since this is on TV or

we are very much u complaint driven at this point as y'all know uh and so for those that are watching and everything if if you call in it [clears throat] may take us a little bit to get there but we deploy cameras and that sort of thing which is our best tool with this and recognizing individuals or bicycles or whatever that's causing the problem and then following up on that gives us an opportunity whether we got the right person or not it's an educational opportunity

and we can talk with them, talk with the parents, make sure they understand what's going on.

Thank you, Chief. Thank you, Cassie.

Thank you.

All right, switching gears to the second initiated item. Bring up Scott Barry, our resident expert on what not to smoke.

Yeah, not to smoking. Smoking. So, again, u [laughter]

I was wondering where you were going. I was I was

good evening mayor and council. Um from bikes to smoking I'll make the transition uh a second council initiated item and this is regarding a code of ordinance uh regard changes for smoking

[snorts] tobacco products and EU cigarettes. So we're here today to kind of talk through what we're thinking with an ordinance and get a pulse check. If if we're thinking correctly we can move forward if we need to make some changes. We want to hear that now um as part of this work session. So, our current ordinance was last updated in 2007. And that's really, you'll hear this a couple times, but before there were things like ecigarettes um with the or uh the general statute, the state allows us to do things. They allowed carry to ban smoking in town facilities and in town transit vehicles. And shortly, uh around that same time, we also outlawed uh or regulated smoking in town vehicles. So, not necessarily a state statute, but through our um our policies. And then in 2010, North Carolina's smoke-free law banned smoking in restaurants and bars. So, you don't see that anymore. People have to go outside. And then there's a new general statute that now lets governments restrict smoking and ecigarettes. So, we're talking about now getting into the ecigarette conversation on town grounds. So, that's like the outside. We're talk we did buildings before, we're now talking about town grounds in parks. that now does vehicles, but we kind of already covered that in enclosed public spaces. So, that's something that we're going to want to make sure we talk about and get your feedback on. How do we get here tonight? So, just kind of laying it out. This is looking at it slightly differently, but I laid in So, we adopted our ordinances in 2007. 2010 that law went into effect. Wake County adopted a tobaccof free ordinance in 2022. Raleigh expanded their non-smoking regulations this year. Um we got a request from council member Bush and Craig. The council initiated item in March that was on a meeting for discussion in April. Raleigh's ordinance took effect um shortly thereafter in April and then we're here today. So like we would recommend Raleigh um they they u adopt the ordinance and then it doesn't become effective for a number of months. So you can kind of get

everything in place. Here's our little chart. put the little chart in there. Um, so current state, right, we've got our uh our current prohibition on lighted tobacco. So this is really what the state regulations used to be is you got to light got to light it up. Got to be a cigarette or a cigar, something you're using a lighter for. Um, and it's in town buildings and public transportation. Talk about the gaps. The gaps are before e cigarettes. It's not mentioned smokeless tobacco. So there's a big difference between are you smoke free, are you tobaccof free? And so that's part of the nuance that we want to make sure we're we're covering correctly when we bring forward the ordinance. Um there's no mention of what happens outside of town properties. We do have rules and regulations for our town staff. We have smoking areas, designated smoking areas that are away from our uh entrances and exits, but you can still smoke on town property. Uh Cocoa Booth, for example, when you go there, has a smoking section that you could go to if you're watching a concert, but it's separate from everything else. Um, and there's no coverage of these privatelyowned enclosed places open to the public. So, it's this is kind of this long thing, but right, you go in and um all of us could be there. It's a public place, but that's that was not covered in the previous um ordinance. So, right, ecigarettes have come into place and now we've got authority to do more stuff. This chart and again, I'm going to draw your attention to the greens and the orange. So green is tobaccof free, meaning you can't have any tobacco products. Orange is just smoke free. You can't smoke the lighted things. So if you look at Carrie, um here I did a little animation here. Look at Carrie. Uh we've got covered smokefree in buildings and vehicles, but we don't address grounds, parks, and recreation. Really what I'm showing you I think is interesting is our neighbors Morrisville, Raleigh um have kind of moved forward with getting tobaccof free on all their places. of parks and on town grounds. And this was from this is a source just source this this is from the tobacco prevention and control.

We've been hearing from some of these groups part of why we brought this I'm I'm assuming we were interested in this item as as things we could do do more for um limiting where people are using tobacco products. So components of a potential amendment we could prohibit all tobacco products. So that includes the ecigarettes on all town grounds and throughout the park system, playgrounds, parks, event spaces, greenways, trails. We could prohibit smoking and ecigarette use in all enclosed public places townwide. And I'll talk about those privately owned places in a minute. We would add expanded definitions to the ordinance that would talk about signage, like what signage would you have to put up both from the town perspective and from a business owner's perspective. what would you have to do to remove cigarette um ashtrays and and sort of places where people might think they could smoke. So you make it clear that smoking is not allowed and then what the enforcement provisions would look like. So the all that would be in a potential ordinance amendment enclosed public spaces. So this is something definitely that we want to make sure is is evident. Um right now the state law says you can't smoke in restaurants and bars. If we brought forward an ordinance, we could bring forward an ordinance that would also say you cannot smoke in places that the public is enclosed in. So, we've got some examples, retail stores, banks, professional offices open to the public, fitness centers, entertainment venues, and hotel lobbies. So, most of these I we're joking like I don't see a lot of smoking in fitness centers, but um now even if the owners wanted to do it, we would be able to say that that was not allowed. Um and you cannot allow adopt a law that restricts. So the state says these places can have smoking no matter what um carrier or any other municipality says. So like you think about your house, your vehicle, if you're in a tobacco shop or a cigar bar, private clubs, so including country clubs. So if you're paying money to get in has a membership and then you can still have a certain number of rooms in a hotel that are smoking.

Um sorry, I'm just slow. The middle

column, what can you do in those places? So right now we don't have any ordinance that's regulating it. The new state

can light up.

Well, it depends what. So it's up to the individual owner, right? So I own a I let's say I'm a I'm a banker and I have a bank, you know, Jim Diamond. I'm like I've got this bank and I could say smoking is allowed in that bank. There's not a law that says you can't do that. Um but I haven't seen a bank that has allowed smoking in it. So like kind of the

but it's really more the how the municipality wants to regulate it across the board.

So it's it's a private place but has a public use like a bank. I mean it might be owned by a private entity but it has a public use like a lobby of you know of a um hotel or bank or where you expect the public to come

and that's a good defiation. The back offices would still not be you know part of what we are talking about today. So, new state regulations would allow, and this is what Raleigh recently has done, is they said you can't smoke in all these publicly accessible places.

Okay.

I'm surprised. I didn't

So, you can't smoke or chew tobacco.

Yeah, it's a tobaccof free. Sorry, I'm using the smoking, but it's to it's tobacco use.

Even a pinch between your cheek and gum can't [laughter] do.

Wow, you said that. So,

I just remember [laughter] the commercials growing up. you had all the tobacco commercials.

So, education as we would move forward, we consider um updating signs on our town buildings, right? Entrances, put if you were going forward with this,

put signage in town vehicles, on grounds throughout the park system at and then you would also direct through your ordinance that um owners of these public places put signs out that said you couldn't smoke if they don't have them already. So, that's kind of that um thing that would would figure out what the markets are currently doing. And you'd also go and uh ask people to remove ashtrays, smoking receptacles from prohibited areas because you wouldn't want them to have us to prohibit smoking in again the bank lobby

and then they have an ashtray there and it confuses people. We did put some costs together. So if you were trying to figure out how do you how do you tell people about signage? Um we've kind of got this no we don't add any additional signs. We do have signs on our buildings right now and we would certainly just use some existing social media and maybe wouldn't update a website, but we don't really update our signs until they're ready to be expired. We have a middle one where we would go through and actually put some signs in, put signs in town vehicles, add some signs to parks, those types of things. And then we'd have option three, which is you kind of do a wholesale sign update. So, kind of interested as we move forward with this, what's the what's the flavor of council and how how much signage are we actually going to update as if we and when we move forward? Um, I'm going to talk a little bit about about I will talk a little bit about enforcement and penalties. So, what happens if someone is smoking? This is what the ordinance would say. If someone's smoking, again, we'll use the bank. Smoking in the bank, the bank manager should tell them to stop smoking in the bank. Step one. Yeah. Right. Individuals could receive an infraction with a fine up to $50. That's what we're writing in the ordinance. That's a um should be a citation by a sworn officer. Um so it's kind of this the lowest bar and Lisa can jump in if we want to talk more about that. Uh the complaints to carry police ultimately they could call the police and we're you know where police are doing a bunch of things at any one time. So complaints to carry police could be treated as a lower priority call depending on what other things were happening when a call came in for someone smoking. Uh and then if it was a town employee, we'd obviously handle that through our own um personnel policies.

So the fine I'm sorry, the fine is not arbitrary. It's set where in some kind of legislative.

So that would be something that Carrie would set. Um the state law for smoking doesn't allow you to make it a misdemeanor or anything actually criminal. So it's um it's a low-level

penalty that like it says on the screen. It's not a court, you know, there's no court cost. You don't go to court over it.

So where's $50 come from? Why isn't $500 or $100 or

it could be um it could be

Raleighs is 50 I don't know where it comes from.

Yeah, I think I honestly I think we were um leaning heavily into the work that Raleigh had done.

Okay. Just curious.

Why reinvent the wheel?

Collected it and goes to the school system.

Yeah. Yes.

If you were to actually issue a fine, it would go to the school system, which I'm assuming there's not many that will be issued. And then there's a separate um uh section where you would talk about infor what would happen if an operator, so the bank owner then is letting people smoke and they're not supposed to. So, it would be a graduated penalties, written notice at first, kind of that education component we were talking about with ebikes. Could be up to $200 for repeat violations by an by an owner or an operator. So, this is where we are. This is the summary. Currently, we have um no smoking in town buildings, no smoking in transit vehicles, and no smoking in town uh vehicles. So, transit vehicles and town vehicles. And I wrote these in the way that I kind of see them as like like the building of things we could add into the ordinance. Currently, we we are writing an ordinance that includes all these things. So, but I'll walk through them. So, the kind of the the lowest hurdle or the easiest change is you add vaping to the list of all banned items at town. So, you kind of make it a tobaccof free or electronic cigarette free. That's the second one. So, you get rid of vaping that's got smoke that comes out of it. Um the second bullet would be you would add tobaccof free language to just town buildings, vehicles, transit vehicles. The third option is you'd add regulations to town- owned facilities. So the outside of town owned facilities. And then um the fourth is you'd add regulations to privately owned public spaces. So kind of this this layering again, we're writing an ordinance based on Raleigh which includes all of the bullets um on the additional options, but we're here to kind of make sure we're we're hitting it

right. And is oh you had on the one um page you had where Morrisville Raleigh were they they all had the same they were all orange.

Yeah.

Do they all basically have the same language? Rollsville

I believe. I believe I know Raleigh's does. I don't I don't know that I've looked at what they're doing on the public places if they're all the same but we can make sure we're

um communicating that.

Yeah. Okay. It would be nice. I think it was Chief Salt who said one of the best things about the using ebike language from the state is that you have consistency across jurisdictions and so that if I go to a bar in Morrisville it's I have the same expectation if I go to one in Raleigh or if I go to a restaurant here I go to a bank and carry I know

I'll never live that down very popular smoking bank

that it's the same that's that's nice to know what they have and I know that's part of the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services language

for tobacco use the same language.

I saw Matt get up. Maybe he wants to add.

I was just going to clarify that with regards to what Raleigh is doing with public places, their current ordinance does not make public places 100% tobaccof free, but what it does is prohibit smoking in the public places. So that um what they've done is they they've made all of the things under their control. So their town facilities, their town grounds, the town parks and all the vehicles they have made it's completely tobaccof free. Public places they have prohibited smoking of lit things. So cigarettes, pipes, cigars and ecigarettes, but they have not prohibited um non uh smoking or or vaping tobacco. What about you?

Yeah. And Matt, could you

marijuana? [laughter]

That is um

at the state level.

I I walked a thousand miles last year and not once did I walk through cigarette smoke or vaping,

but I got kicked in the face with pot smoke

many many many times. That smell. It's you can't

already illegal.

Already illegal.

Yeah.

And I think Matt, if you'll tell them why we think Raleigh made that.

But people think it's legal. They're like they're they're quite literally

Well, this would

this would technically prohibit that because it's a cigarette. If it's if it's a if it's a doobie and it's smoking with a bomb, [laughter]

it is it is technically prohibited by this ordinance because that's how it's it actually I take that back. It it depends on how we word it.

You can make it so it's it's um medium or you can make it so it's drugrelated. So some some do specifically say any tobacco or nicotine derived item is illegal. We would have to think about that on how we would phrase it. Um so it would come down to that. Uh we also think that uh what Lisa was suggesting was why they may be um limiting the prohibition in public places to only smoking and e and ecigarettes is because the actual statute that gives that authority is limited to smoking that that mentions public

things that have secondhand effects. So there's not secondhand effects if it's just

to right.

You going to walk around like that?

So as I was saying, that's the type of ordinance we're bring forward. Thank you. [laughter]

My grandmother.

So yeah, I think what we're looking for is kind of guidance. I like how Scott has the four points on the side um are you know what of those four things or combination of such or kind of what we Matt explained with Raleigh, you know, which of those are you most interested in? um the ordinance that we bring forward to you. You can have all of it, can have pieces of it. When we bring it to you for decision, you can say, "Take that piece out, put that piece back in." We're not trying to bind you tonight, but just trying to get an indication of of those four things. What are what are you interested in having in the ordinance?

And just to be perfectly clear, Scott,

what we choose in terms of ordinance does not dictate a couple of slides back what we ultimately do with signage. like we could adopt all of this and then that's just a communication vehicle

and and really what we're trying to make sure is that if we if you say we want you to adopt this ordinance and do a a very robust we heard the $200,000 greenway kind of education a very robust communication plan we would have to figure out how to um bring monies to that you know are we doing something

we could say we want all this on the books but we don't want to spend any money to update signage I mean we we could opt for for both I mean you could question how effective that would be. But

yes,

I think you've seen with the other cities when they adopted no smoking in parks, that sort of thing, they had updated signage.

That's typically what they do.

So, so I think for options, one, I I like what Lori said. We got to have an option that mirrors our neighbors. And then I'm open to what other options you guys want to see to vote on.

Did you say right now at Cocoa Booth there was a designated smoking area?

Yeah. Have we thought about what it might do to sales if people can't legally smoke at a place like that? I think that's that's so that balance of where do you allow it and if you don't allow it what do people do because I mean enforcement of that is difficult like in a concert I mean I think maybe to coun we start to get calls we've never gotten before because now you're not supposed to smoke there and now people are saying

what you're going to smell is what

I don't do let's be honest

back to enforcement

but also there's all that pine straw the last thing you want somebody doing is going to sneaking behind a tree and dropping that thing in the pine straw either at least.

Yeah,

I don't know where the designated smoking area is, but it's probably doesn't not in a bed of pine straw, right? I'm guessing

those are the things to consider.

Yeah. I mean, [laughter]

when you adopt this type of ordinance,

listen, I I appreciate that

that you called out the fact that there is the secondhand smoke issue, which I definitely understand. For me, there's also just the fact that we want clean and healthy places for everyone and utilite and using tobacco similar to, you know, you can drink, right? And the well, there's no secondhand drinking fumes unless you're having a long eyelid iced tea maybe um that's going to impact someone else and we have limits around that. So personally I would like to be tobaccof frame language that includes that also that includes the smokeless products and also I did do a quick search on the Raleigh page because I remembered it differently and there seems to be a difference between what their front page says their front page says that they're tobaccof free everywhere and then Matt's looking up right now the ordinance

and you mean nicotine related also.

I mean your pinch that you keep on talking about too.

Yeah. So Lori, that's exactly an issue that we've been looking at when we were looking at this because initially

when when I got when Lisa came to me and said, "Hey, council wants to look at a smoking ordinance and they like what Raleigh did, so go look at it." So I started looking at it and I had the same issue where I'm like, "Well, wait a minute. Raleigh is saying that they're smoke free in all public places." And then I looked at their ordinance and I that's not what their ordinance says. Their ordinance specifically has two sections in it. One, it says uh basically tobacco smoking uh ecigarettes and tobacco use are prohibited and and then they list the town places. Then they have a separate section that says smoking and ecigarettes are prohibited in the public places and it mentions nothing about tobacco use. So maybe it's a typo because I I was looking on the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services one and it says tobac counties is

tobaccof free. So maybe

so whatever you all want to do, we will make sure our language is is correct to the extent that we have the authority to do it. But there are there there we there are some the tobaccof free everywhere.

We have some potential. We'd have to look at that. We'd have to look at that in depending upon what you all want us to do.

Matt, I know this is Oh, sorry, Mayor. I I this is really getting lost in the weeds, but I am now just curious that we're talking about this. You know, so many of the newest products, as I understand them, are not tobacco products. They're nicotine delivery products. So, when we say smokeless or tobaccofree, I'm not covering that.

Does it does it apply to those kinds of products, too?

It it might. It depends on what we're doing, where we're trying to do it, and it depends on what the enabling authority that we have from the general assembly and it depends on how we want to structure it and what we want to look at. There are multiple ways. There is one specific statute that we pull a lot of this from that talks about smoking and only smoking. And smoking is defined as uh ecigarettes aren't undersmoking because it the way the way that term is it's a tobacco product. It's a lit tobacco product. However, we have other ordinance authority that's broader uh that allows us to regulate for the public benefit, the public health and that is the ordinance under which we believe many of our sister cities are operating to get to ecigarettes. And so we we can do that. We can look into that and we can do it to expand that. We actually had one of our our current intern who uh you met last night. She was looking at this and she's like, you know, there's there are items now that aren't nicotine based, but that are still delivering certain types of either synthetic nicotine or or other addictive substances. And we we actually have been looking at, okay, how do we expand this to potentially cover that? So, we just need guidance on you from you all on on how far do you want us to take it and where do you want us to go and where do you want us to to look at at putting

these regulations in and then we can come back after having done a little more research and figure out where you guys want to go.

So, so [clears throat] I've mentioned one option that would be the next option be about as restrictive as you can be and then I would think you would want an option that's not as restrictive at all. So, that's three options. I would suggest an ordinance that restricts the use of things that create vapor or secondhand smoke because that's a public health issue and it affects other people. If it's not affecting other people, we let grown ass adults do what they want. Whether or not a man wants to use smokeless or, you know, a dip between his cheek and gums or a woman for that matter

while walking down the sidewalk,

my grandmothers, I'm telling

not none of my business. don't care. You do you. Um, but I think it's an over a significant overstep

and that should definitely be an option. Yep.

Yeah. To do things that aren't in the public health. I mean, we don't want to restrict people's personal liberties. We want to protect others from behaviors that are unhealthy. And so, I think going any further than just what other people can inhale by being near you is is a step too far. It's just my opinion. So Scott, um if you could go one or two slides where you had um recommendations. First box had restaurants. Um not this one. Yeah. So you have um current and closed public places, restaurants and bars. Can you please um tell me a little bit about this? So does this mean that um we already have this? Yeah, this the state of North Carolina put out rules that said you can't smoke in restaurants or bars in 2010ish.

That's right.

And then we have additional authority now to say that you couldn't um smoke or potentially use tobacco products depending on which way we go in these other publicly public places um that are enclosed. So those are I gave examples

retail

may not include vaping.

It depends how we wrote it. Right. I mean, but we would have the

likely vaping is likely included. Um,

and we likely I I feel pretty confident we have the authority to ban vaping.

Yeah.

In all of those places in the middle column. Um, the for the reasons that council member Conson stated, the the smokeless tobacco that doesn't have vapors that affect other people, I think is the area um that's

yeah,

you know, more likely to be challenged by somebody. I was certainly happy when I moved back to North Carolina after graduate school to know that people were no longer smoking in restaurants and bars. Also, I think I'd like to hear a lot more discussion about how people feel about these privatelyowned places because and my although I am benefiting from the restaurants and bars, me not having to figure out which ones I should and shouldn't go to, I kind of think that if I walk into a privately owned store and people are shanning and they're smoking, I just back out and don't give in my business. I just would like to hear a lot more discussion about how people feel about that.

Yeah. And that's what I had not really thought a lot about. Scott touched on it, but just to be clear, all the places on that list can ban smoking, vaping, and smokeless tobacco themselves

in their establishments. So that is right now. They have that power. We don't need to do anything for them to be able to ban and say, "I don't want vaping in my establishment." So they can all do that today. So it's it's an individual choice of the business owners. But somewhere would be not the direction of are we talking about town or our ourselves or doing it to these private businesses. Yeah.

And how far if you wish the ordinance to go far to the mayor's point provide all

the

you don't have a choice. If you're staying at a hotel and then you're in a hotel lobby

and you know some of those places you don't

but you can choose another hotel.

If you've already checked let's say you checked in in the morning and you come down

you walked in through the lobby where everybody's chain smoking

at 8 in the morning. You might not. I'm just saying that some places you have clear choices to do something else. Yes, I'll go into a different store, go into a different establishment. The question is when is an an area when is a public area really public, right?

And can you um you know, depending on what it is, you don't want it's kind of like with the sign ordinance, you can't talk about the content of it. When is an area public? and and do we only say okay the areas that are public that are owned by the town which we're certainly uh doing that right now or are we talking about as Raleigh and Wake County and and actually the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services suggested making areas that are public with kids right you've [snorts] got kids with you and you're entering are you going to pick up and leave when that's really a public space it's a space that's open to the public. So, it's about what we want to see. It's also, you know, I I kind of disagree with the chewing tobacco and seeing people spit. You know, there's there's there there are cleanliness issues I have with that myself, but I'm not doing the chewing tobacco. But I also think that there are reasons that we want people to exhibit a, you know, um, a kind of behavior and role model that we want our kids to see,

right? If they want to go to a private club or or all the other lists of places they can go, absolutely. But in a area that's really open to the public, I just feel like from my perspective, um, I would like to see no smoking, no tobacco use. um a as is in many other towns and

areas in in the state.

So So I want to try to summarize where we are. I I think we're just going to bounce around all night long. Uh so there are two issues I see. One on town facilities, one in the the other facilities. So we need options for you guys to bring back. I heard one the most

well not the most restrictive but similar to every

right

similar to Raleigh Wake County [clears throat]

and then the other option for the town owned facilities would probably be if it's not hurting anybody leave it alone I think those are two options to consider for the town own

there may be more yeah

yeah there may be more but at least those two and then the other facilities I don't know what you want to call that the nontown facilities ities private private

private public the statute actually calls them public places which makes it very difficult but that's what it's that's what it's termed in the

that's what is termed in the initially

and and so again we want to you were talking about modeling behavior so that would be very restrictive or more restrictive

correct

um and then if it's not harming anybody we don't need to go there kind of thing uh so those are two options what other options I think we can bring you, you know, I kind of see it as uh I think what I'm hearing, tell me if I'm wrong, I think everyone I'm hearing consensus on no smoking, no vaping um in any town building, I'm I'm feel like I'm hearing or any town parks or greenways

or vehicles.

When you say no smoking, vaping,

I just said no smoking and vaping. So

So nicotine or any future

Don't even define smoking. What? anything that anyone else can inhale.

Yes, you can't even burn to me to write that.

So, I think we can you can kind of start with that as the base and then then you can add building blocks to it. And so, we can provide options in the staff report of building blocks. Okay. Now, let's ban all tobacco products in this

place and in that place. So, we can just kind of

create building blocks and you can tell us, you know, when we when you're when you see it all in front of you, you can decide which ones.

Well, let let me go a different Sorry, Lisa. to a different [snorts] area because if you were to give direction tonight, we know where to go for having

if you had consensus.

Yes. So if there's

Do we want to try voting maybe so that it's easier for

I think some of us want more information.

Well, just to because you asked to read the temperature. So just to weigh in, I am more of the thinking of Mayor Prom Bush of being supportive of some version of all of these bullet points because I agree with the public health policy perspective. You know, I I appreciate the the uh freedom to let adults make their own decisions, but you know, part of setting public health policy is to discourage unhealthy behaviors because even though they might be free to make those decisions, it's still not good for them. And to the extent that we as policy makers are discouraging unhealthy behaviors, I I am um amendable to that argument.

Do we have two others that support that? If others then we won't have to carry that one forward. Then we'll know how far. I

I am not ready to make that call.

I want to be very very clear. I agree with you both.

But much like free speech, sometimes people are going to say things I really really hate. I'm not in the I'm not in the mindset that we police other humans who have we'll call it agency, right? And so I'm very uncomfortable with um significant regulation of private business owners who pay mortgage or rent or you know what I mean? So I'm I'm all for banning all the things on public

town

even like [snorts] hurting other people

and

well no that's that is a a bridge a

little too far I think. I mean, going tobaccof free. Who was actually chewing tobacco anymore either?

Like,

I'm at least not saying I Well, I was at the bark bar the other day and there spitting into a cup and it was and and missing and the biohazard to me was just

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it was so I wouldn't go back to the bark bar if that bothered.

And I'd say I'd say let's ban spitting on the ground in public spaces. I'm comfortable with that. But again, like this is it's not about what I like and know what I want people to do. To me, it's really about a lot of, you know, rights that we can't take for granted here. I I know probably everybody involved in the American Heart Association and all these movements is going to think I'm awful, but when when it comes down to a choice between individual rights and a a shaky ground for greater public good, I'm going to come down on individual rights every single time. I think I might be a libertarian. [laughter]

See the light? So for me, I think the restaurants and um the bars where you mentioned that, you know, we already have an ordinance and there's no smoking allowed. I think that's important to me. Um I think um the town facilities is definitely, you know, something that we the buildings I think there's already an ordinance for the town buildings and stuff, right? It's just the parks that we don't cover. Um I'm kind of leaning towards what Karissa said, you know, um only from a perspective that we will build an ordinance which will be very hard to enforce

and we will spend a lot more money and lot more um resources on a problem that does not exist in Kerry. Like this is not New York City where you walk and you're you're you can smell weed everywhere. At least and not

in West

downtown lately.

Not in West your neighborhood. [laughter]

The best car is clean. Sorry. So um at least from my perspective this is just my perspective but you know I don't know anything about downtown Kerry. So I'm glad you mentioned now I know.

I mean it's not all the time. It's I really don't care if I'm being honest. I just walk quickly you know because I don't like [laughter] the smell. That's all.

So, I I guess what I would say is um I am used to compromise and I am so glad we're having this conversation because I I would never have been able to guess where each of us were. We're

I still don't know where I'm going,

right? Where we're going to [laughter] land.

So, it would be great

7 p.m.

What we from my perspective, what I need is a little bit more information about, you know, who does what and where. What my goal is to get as close as um uh we can to make it so that when a person goes from Raleigh to Morrisville to Kerry to wherever they have the same kind of regulation whether it includes you know chewing tobacco or not. Look I I would love for us to to model that kind of behavior like Raleigh does but you know I'm not going to vote against it. So, if you could maybe write it in a way that allows us to pick or choose that one out once we take a straw pull.

Yeah.

Then that would be great.

All right. So, now I'm going to do a check with you guys. Do you think you know [laughter] what we want or you have no clue?

Think we can deliver something that you all are going to have to make a [laughter] choice on.

You're going to have to talk about it again. Yeah.

Bella, where do you fall? A little more towards the restrictive or or are you

I'm learning actually. I don't know so many options to use tobacos. [laughter]

But but she's going to stop by a vape store on the way home.

Not from the same generation. [laughter]

She's not seen those.

I don't know. There's so many options like

and and fake tobacco now. But at least I

don't want to uh have any kind of secondhand smoke. That's the basic. But if you go to extremely over there, even I'm still learning how do they use that. Still I feel you need to give those kind of people some options to use their um what they like in the private area. I don't know. But I need more options here to learn because it's a good conversation discussion

and I will teach my kids not to [laughter] touch those. And you'll know it when you see it now after this conversation.

So [laughter] for for next steps, I'm going to amend this slide just a little summerish. We'll be back and then um you we would recommend again that you would bring we would have time before it went into effect. So we'd adopt something and have time.

Thank you.

We look forward to your decision.

Yeah, we do. I think I said there was going to be no update, but I do draw your attention to you have the last pulse report of the budget season um until next budget season. Um but just draw your attention to that for probably the last uh hole punched document for your binder this year until you get another binder next year.

And that's all. Mayor.

All right, we are ready to go into close session and I would entertain a motion to do so. Uh, pursuant to GS 143 3181A 1 3 and 6, I move that we hold a close session to consult attorneys employed by the town and or retained by the town in order to preserve the attorney privilege between the attorneys and the town, prevent the disclosure of information that is made privileged or confidential pursuant to the laws of the state or not considered a public record within the meaning of chapter 132 of the general statutes or privileged and confidential pursuant to GS14. 4764.6 and consider the qualifications, competence, performance, characteristics, fitness, conditions of employment, or conditions of initial

employment of one or more individuals, officers, or employees.

There's a motion.

Is there a second?

Second.

Second. Discussion. All in favor, please say I.

Any opposed? Motion carries. And we will go into close session right here.

We'll reconvene our work session at this time. We've concluded our business. So I say this work session is done. Thanks. [laughter]

You're missing your girl like