A bill for an ordinance amending the maximum fines that may be assessed by the Denver Department of Public Health and Environment. Amends Article XII of Chapter 2 and Article I of Chapter 24 of the Denver Revised Municipal Code to increase the maximum fines that may be assessed by the Denver Department of Public Health and Environment to $5,000 and to allow for administrative citations to be sent via first class mail. The Committee approved filing this item at its meeting on 7-14-21.
No items have been called out under bills for final consideration. Council Pro Tem Torres has called out bills 770 for questions under pending. No items have been called out. Madam Secretary, would you please put the first item on our screen? And Councilmember Torres, you can go ahead with your questions on Council Bill 770, please. Thank you, Madam President. Director McDonald, just a few clarifying questions as this comes through for final reading. I know in our in our second briefing, there were a number of things that came up that I just wanted to make sure we're we're clarified from my community questions that we might have been getting in any others. But the the jump from a $999 fine to $5,000, I wanted to give a little bit of time for explanation on what kind of is what created the the cause or the justification for that jump, because that was something that I think was important information to know. Sure. Well, thank you, Councilman. And before I answer the question, I would just like to say, I hope you're all doing well. We are still not out of the pandemic. So I hope I hope you're all hanging in there. So let me start out by saying that this initiative is not because of the pandemic. We were going to move this effort forward before the pandemic, before we ever had our first case, because what we've been seeing more and more is that our administrative fine authority hadn't been changed in decades. It's been at 999, and because of that, because it's over, the course of time has become outdated. We were seeing more and more where regulated industries were disobeying orders. Now, I want to I want to stress this, that I think that in Denver, I think we do very, very well. All regulated industries, I think, do a very, very well with complying with Denver's public health orders. But from time to time, in all industries, we have those that might disobey public health orders because the $999 cap was not enough incentive for them to comply. And we would see this sometimes during the course of our interactions with them during regulated or inspections, where we might hear that they're not going to do that because the cost of paying the fine is less than the cost of being closed. And that's that we hear that in a number of different regulated industries. So there's that. And then we would also see that sometimes when a responsible party in a regulated industry would comply while we're there, they might. Changed their mind and then not continue to comply after we leave. So, for example, if we were to issue an order for a particular venue, a restaurant, a swimming pool, a barrier facility or what have you. If we were to issue an order to them to close or discontinue using a piece of equipment, or they might comply while we're there thinking that maybe we're not going to come back in the evening or we're not going to come back in the weekend, and they would go ahead and move open back up or move forward using a piece of equipment that they shouldn't have used. And these are serious public health violations. We're not talking about a $5,000 fine for repeat violations. We're talking about some serious public health violations that are imminent public health risks. And I'll give some examples. Just set the context for why we're doing this. But again, I want to stress that the industries that will reference are not those that stand out to me in terms of where we see this the most. But if we were to issue an order for a body artist to continue using an autoclave, that's not working properly. If we left that facility and came back and they were using that, that could result in the transmission of hepatitis or HIV between people that are receiving tattoos. If we were to issue an order for a responsible party to close the swimming pool because there was no chlorine in it, and then we came back and they let kids and everybody get back in the pool. That could result in an outbreak of something called cryptosporidium, which is a pretty, pretty serious parasite from recreational waters when there's no sanitizer in the water, no chemicals. If we were to issue a restaurant in order to close because it was too dirty to operate and that that's rare, but it happens. I think overall the restaurant industry does a very good job. But we do occasionally find that where someone will go ahead and open back up or we condemn some food product during the course of an inspection and they agree to comply to throw it away. But then later on might try to use that that could result in a wide range of foodborne illnesses. So. So we've seen this in a wide range of regulated industries, more and more because that 1999 has been in place for decades, decades. And yet throughout the state, all local public health departments and their specialties, if they find someone who has not complied with a public health order, it is of up to a $5,000 fine. That in Denver it's 999. Not only is it $5,000 outside of the city of Denver, they will charge that person with a criminal violation and take them to court. You know, our goal indeed is to gain compliance with public health orders, not to assess fines and generate revenue. We we we will continue to use this with great discretion. And can you just reassure me of the process by which fines might incrementally increase or what that schedule looks like? Yeah. Thank you. So I don't I don't envision huge changes. Right now we have existing fines, schedules that will go up incrementally. It's just that, again, when we reach the cap, we need a little bit more of a tool that we can use for those that are resistant to compliance. So we did a lot of research throughout the country, and I wish I could say that throughout the country it's $5,000, but that's not the reality. It's quite varied depending upon the jurisdiction, depending upon the type of the public health violation. But we did that research and if we were to take the average of many, many municipalities, the average fine cap for all of them, the average is about 50 $500. But probably more important than what we're seeing is the average across the country is what is it? And the tri county health department, what is it in Jefferson County or up in Larimer County? In El Paso County, it's $5,000 for violating a public health order. So I think that that we've fallen behind with the public health tools that we can use. And that's just been that that's just become more apparent during the pandemic. Thank you so much, Director. I don't have any more questions about. All right. Thank you, Counselor Dan Torres. And thank you, Bob, for answering those questions. Okay. Thank you all. All right. That concludes the items to be called out. All bills for introduction are ordered published. Council members remember this is a consent or block vote and you will need to vote by otherwise. This is your last chance to call on an item for a separate vote.