September 19, 2025 — Meeting Transcript

Yeah. We can wait a minute. Oh, it's just not on here.

Oh, on the D.

Yeah. Rear camera to the zoom piece.

Sorry. Okay.

Absolutely. I'll pull it up.

Good afternoon, everybody. It is Friday, September 19th, and we are having a discussion session. I think our city manager's going to lead, I think, both items on the agenda this afternoon, and we can get started.

Okay. Thank you, Mayor. So this is a follow-up to the conversation. We had a lot of public comment. I think it was maybe two regular meetings ago with the Board of Aldermen. We heard from a lot of residents in Davis Place. A lot of it was of brought on by a business that recently opened here in the city but we wanted to take a kind of a broad look at our current ordinances that we have in place and see what other cities have in place as it relates to what we're calling uh retail smoking establishments so uh as you can see here things that are included within those retail smoking establishments i have on the title screen which would be things like tobacco vapes and then hemp derivative products so not necessarily marijuana which is regulated through state law and local laws for dispensaries, but other hemp-related products. So as far as our current regulations, just to give an overview of what we currently have on the books, within our zoning code, tobacco and vapor product establishments, all of these retail smoking establishments, they're not differentiated at all from regular retail establishments. So anywhere retail is permitted, tobacco and vapor products are permitted. So there's no special regulation whatsoever, and there's a number of zoning districts where those things are currently allowed. In the offenses section of the code, and this is where we get into a lot of our regulations as they relate to tobacco and vapor products, these are some of the current rules that we have. So we have an age restriction in place for the sale of those products, and that's a 21 years of age restriction. We do require proof of age at the time of sale. we prohibit attempted purchase by minors and then we have restrictions on smoking within specific places so a lot of that has to do with indoor smoking and smoking in public places violations of the offenses section are currently laid out this way so for sale to a minor and this is the clerk or an owner of establishment the first offense is just a 25 fine the second offense 100 third and subsequent offenses are 250 dollars The owner is protected from penalty if they have a training program in place. There is a state-run training program. I think it takes about an hour to complete, very similar to Serve Safe, which we put in our code of ordinances maybe a year ago or so for alcohol sales. But there is a similar program for tobacco. Also, if the employee signs a statement that they have been trained and understand the laws, then the owner is protected from the fines and the violations that you see here above. And that's it. That's all we have in the books right now as it relates to this. So very little we can do from a regulatory standpoint. So as we've looked at other cities as models and looked at our own codes, and then also state statute to see what we could borrow from that. Actually, we even went all the way to the federal regulations and took a look at what FDA had recommended for various things. We do have some recommended changes to our regulations. So first on the zoning side of things, We need to create a clear definition for hemp-derived intoxicants, tobacco, and vaping establishments. So what we have is really a catch-all title which is a retail smoking establishment. And you can see the definition here. Basically, it's an establishment primarily engaged in the display, marketing, and sale of tobacco products, non-tobacco nicotine products, alternative nicotine products, electronic nicotine delivery systems, vapor products, the hemp-derived intoxicants, and supporting paraphernalia for use or consumption off-premises. This establishment shall not include marijuana products, which again are regulated separately through dispensaries or alcohol products. And then what we would need to do is establish the appropriate zoning districts for retail smoking establishment uses. What you'll typically see are like C2 type zoning districts. Usually that intensity is very common in cities. So that's something that we would recommend here. The other thing that should be noted is under that retail smoking establishment definition, we don't differentiate between somebody that's selling these hemp derived products or vapes From your, your standard traditional tobacco shop. So we do have a couple of those in the city there within the downtown area so that's another thing that we would need to contemplate and consider when we get into the zoning code is whether or not we want to make this a permitted use within the downtown area. In the offense section, we would prohibit persons under 21 years of age from entering these retail smoking establishments. So right now, we just prohibit the sale to people under 21. This would prohibit people under 21 from even entering the premises. We would require digital age verification calendar checkouts. You see these at various retailers for both tobacco and alcohol, so it looks almost like a Calculator screen, a little LED screen that has the birth date that's required to purchase products. We require that at all checkouts. We can enact a new section that would impose a minimum age restriction for the possession, purchase and sale of the hemp derived intoxicants. So Chesterfield has a really good ordinance that they put together that we could use as a template. that gets at these things. And so really briefly, if you're not familiar with the hemp-derived intoxicants, there are different types. You hear Delta-8 a lot. There are some other products that are similar to that. But essentially, you have the marijuana product. Again, that's sold in dispensaries. It's known as Delta-9. It's cannabis. So you have the cannabis plant. There's these little flowering buds on top, and that's what people actually smoke or ingest. whether they turn into different concentrates. So that's one particular product that's out there. It's all natural, that bud that's at the top of that plant, that's what has the intoxicating effect. With these hemp-derived intoxicants, very similar plant, very similar structure, but the flowering buds that are on the top of those have no naturally intoxicating properties. but you can get it to that point with a chemical process. And so you can extract some compounds that act just like the buds do in marijuana, typical marijuana. And so you see the sale of a lot of these hemp derived intoxicants, we're calling it, that have gone through this chemically treated process and You see those for sale all over the place. You might have heard recently the county was talking about potentially restricting the sale of these hemp products. From time to time, they'll talk about it at the state level. I know that the governor tried to ban the... edible versions so you see a lot of you know gummies and candies and other products that are brightly colored uh that are these hemp derived intoxicants that are being sold in gas stations and other places what i'm getting at is it's extremely unregulated so there's no required lab testing for these products there's no restriction at the state level as to where they're sold or even an age restriction on these things in fact i think an age restriction might have just passed in the last session that put it at 21 But they're very easy to find. They're just all over the place. And it's very different than the marijuana industry, which is very, very tightly regulated where those products have to go through a testing process. You know what you're buying when you're buying those particular products. So there are safety concerns with the hemp derived intoxicants. So there's an ordinance Chesterfield that I think would be a pretty good model for us to get into that, defining it and then regulating it. we would prohibit the display of paraphernalia or smoking instruments in windows or other areas where it can be viewed from a public right-of-way. So that's one way we can cut down on some of the concerns about just the overall appearance and especially minors seeing it and taking interest in it and wanting to go in and see what's going on because just driving by, it looks like something that's You know, appealing or exciting. And then finally prohibit outdoor loitering or congregation on the premises of a retail smoking establishment. Very similar to what we have for dispensaries here. I'll just settle down. All right. Some additional questions. modifications to the offense section, we would like to define what a covered product is. So expanding this a little bit, and a lot of this is based on what we see through the FDA and FDA recommendations. So this would include tobacco products, alternative nicotine products, vapor products, being very specific about all the things that are included here. We would prohibit the sale of cigarettes, cigarette tobacco and roll your own tobacco that contained a characterizing flavor except for menthol or tobacco. So the state passed something related to vapes a few years ago where they couldn't be fruit flavored or anything else. And so this is very similar but deals with tobacco. We would prohibit prohibit the distribution of free samples of these covered products. So you can't just hand these out to people. You can't repackage smokeless tobacco products into smaller amounts, very much like cigarettes. You can't break up a pack of cigarettes if you're a retailer and sell those individually. We would have the same restriction in place for smokeless tobacco products. And then finally, one that we're looking at is prohibit the marketing and sale of covered products that are not authorized by the FDA. Currently, the FDA authorizes marketing for only 39 products. And those 39 products are electronic nicotine delivery systems. So things like jewels, you'll see jewel signs from time to time and windows. They're authorized to do marketing, but there are only 39 currently listed on this FDA database that are allowed to be marketed. So somehow finding a way to take that FDA database and then cross-reference that with our municipal code. It would be another layer of regulation for us and something that the FDA would be taking a look at. The one thing that's important to note with, you know, you look at this and there's only 39 products that are authorized through the FDA. Just goes to show, and I think we had a speaker a couple of weeks ago that talked about this is a lot of these products are just extremely unregulated. We are not quite sure what you're buying or where they're coming from. And I think that's what the FDA is getting at when you read through a lot of this is they don't know the origin. A lot of these products or how they're tested or just just how safe they are. And then finally, I talked about zoning and offense sections that we currently have in place for tobacco. One place you don't see mention of tobacco is within the business license section of the city code. So we would like to put into place a licensing requirement. So it would require a license for retail smoking establishments similar to what we do for alcohol. That way we can establish a license revocation process for repeat offenders under both the offense and the licensing regulation sections so we've got some teeth there where if we revoke the license they wouldn't be able to operate um and so that's um you know just another safeguard for the community we would require show me education and compliance training for owners managers and clerks at these establishments again very similar to what we see with serve safe for alcohol and then finally the police department would perform compliance checks like we do for alcohol sales so we send in a minor and see if they can buy a product. If they're sold a product, then we cite the clerk and we cite the owner, if applicable. So those are our recommendations with the research we've done to date. With that, I'll open it up to any questions the board may have on this. We also, our city attorney has been looking at some of this, and we've got our police department here as well. And I know they're familiar with some of these regulations.

David, thank you very much. And thanks to everybody, Kevin. And I know Anna was involved at all or was also involved in this. So I really appreciate you going through and really doing some great research for us. So I'm sure people have questions so we can just go around. Susan, do you have any specific questions?

Yes. It's quite an education. So Currently, flavored vapes are outlawed at the state level.

That's my

understanding. So we don't worry about that. Then when you're looking at the existing enforcement consequences, is there immunity? If the owner has no liability if he's gone through training, that seems too much of a blanket. If there's four or five violations, I would hope that we even if everyone's gone through the training i would hope that we can do something about it revoke a license or something is that going to

change that revocation process that's exactly what we would be getting at is if there's repeated offenses at that particular location then we could go after the establishment

regardless whether they've gone through the training but it's

the owner

of the training regardless um all right that's it for right now

So, first of all, I think what you've done here is great because I think you've tied in not just zoning, which might have some limitations in terms of its regulatory force, but getting into the offense section and the business license. I think tying all three of those together is a great idea. Yeah. I know we probably don't want to get into necessarily the particulars of any special place that has opened, but it is my understanding that to the extent that there is a smoke shop that is recently opened, it is my understanding, I just want to confirm it, that strictly from a zoning standpoint, that nothing we would do with zoning would allow us to rescind that particular occupancy since it's a non-conforming use We can't make that go away. Is that correct?

That's correct. This wouldn't impact any tobacco or smoking retail establishment in the city.

And in terms of the zoning concept, because I know people would ask about generally Clayton Road, would you anticipate that there would be a possibility under zoning changes for a second such use to appear in the future? Or would you expect that that particular area like From Brentwood to Hanley, that strip, it's in Clayton, which now has a smoke shop, would be very unlikely to have a second smoke shop. Or is that premature to ask?

Yeah, I don't. We don't have any sort of requirement in here that there be a certain distance between these types of retailers. So I don't know that there's anything that would preclude a second one from opening up. I will say I don't know what the demand is for these particular products and products.

whether or not you can even make it on a stretch like that. When I look at what has been addressed here, especially in the offense section, I see a lot of things that people have already talked about, particularly displays, that type of thing, which I think many people find, no pun intended, offensive. And I think what is very potentially productive here is the concept of the business license policy Because the concern is that the penalties for the offense are nominal enough that they may not necessarily result in stopping some practice that we wouldn't want. But the fact that under business license, someone would risk losing their license altogether, I think, puts some real teeth into the overall package. So I think that's a real positive. So generally, I think everything that is suggested here is a great idea, and I would hope we could do it as promptly as possible to put all these changes into effect. And I think it would make people a lot happier about – about what's going on. And my final question is, I'm still a little confused that it seems to me there are many legal prohibitions against selling the product themselves, whether it's the powder or the liquids, whatever form are used in these pipes, but that the paraphernalia itself is not necessarily prohibited for sale to someone under 21. Although, again, it's my understanding that if you're under 21, if we adopt these regulations, you're really prohibited from going into a smoke shop. So that might sort of cut that off at the pass. That's correct.

Yeah, that's the intent. That's one of the issues with paraphernalia and things like that. Until you've actually used it for that particular purpose, it's just a piece of glass or whatever it is.

Thank you. That'll do for me for the moment. Thanks.

Jeff, do you have any questions?

Yeah, I've just got two. Gary touched on one of them. But at a high, high level, if we wanted to ban these type of shops altogether, could we do that? I'm not saying we should. I'm just asking, could we? On a go-forward basis.

So if you're going to do that, I would... you know, you would want to explore banning all tobacco type shops, all smoking retail establishments. It's really difficult to establish a rational basis for treating vape just if you just sold vapes differently than you would a tobacco shop. So if you wanted to rule out tobacco completely citywide, it would have to be an across the board type action. And even at that, I would need to look at under the state tobacco laws, whether or not there's any kind of preemption to that. The attorney might know more.

That's exactly right. The public health rationale for dealing and regulating these is the same for vape products as it is for tobacco products. And to distinguish between the two of them would be, in my view, difficult to survive challenge.

And that I understand. I guess, David, you touched on what I guess the larger underlying assumption in my question was. If we wanted to ban all tobacco shops, we could, in theory, do that. I'm not saying we should or shouldn't, but in terms of taking this a step further, if we as a board felt that tobacco generally fell into the same concerns as these vape products, we could just ban the sale of all of them on a go-forward basis for new businesses.

I personally don't know if a preemption

exists. We have not looked at that issue. The fact that there is not a political subdivision in this state, or to the best of my knowledge, other states that has gone that far would lead me to question that. But we'll take a look at it.

No, that it's I mean, I it was just a question for me to go out and for those who are scared about whether we'd want to go that far, even if it was possible. The other question would be for the. The newer shops and the let's call it the older shops, tobacco shops that have been around a long time. Clearly, the zoning wouldn't affect it, but I would assume they now would have to. apply for a business license and they now would be subject to the violations and loss of the business license if we went forward with this. Is that correct?

That's correct. So they would need to get an annual license, just like any of these shops, these retail smoking establishments would. The display regulations that you see here, those would apply as well. Uh, the, the fine structure is already in place for those shops, the age, age restrictions already in place for tobacco. So, um, that wouldn't be a huge change. Uh, the training requirement would be new for them. Uh, but again, it's a relatively quick process to go through that training and there's no cost. So I don't see that being a, a huge burden. The biggest difference would be the, the added layer of a licensing requirement.

And do we have a sense, I mean, maybe, or If we went through with that, what would you think the license costs be for those existing firms? Do we get to choose that or is there kind of set in an ordinance already what we were charged in for an annual business license?

I think we'd have to take into consideration the Hancock Amendment, which establishes a voter approval requirement for any new tax license or fee. So are you saying that we'd have to – If there is to be a fee for the license, it would implicate an analysis under the Hancock Amendment.

So does that mean potentially we wouldn't charge a fee but require a license or we just have to be – the fee has to be under some number?

There may be a point that is de minimis that we could get away with, but there is the Hancock analysis would have to be considered and we can license without charging a fee.

Okay. And so from my standpoint, I am just to be clear, I wasn't asking to advocate like an $8,000 fee. I was actually thinking about it the other way. Like I think To Gary's point, the teeth of having the license is more important to me than whatever fee we would generate off of it. I just wanted to understand to those existing businesses that have been around a long time and are good citizens of the city, what something like this would do to them from a cost standpoint. And it sounds like, again, depending on how we set the fee, if it's anything, it probably wouldn't be much from a dollar standpoint. It may be some additional monitoring and upkeep, but it wouldn't It wouldn't put them out. And that's kind of what I was trying to make sure I understood. So those are all the questions I had at this point, Mayor.

Thank you.

Kami? A couple of quick questions. So, you know, this one kind of came below our radar. Are any of these regulations going to now say, like, you need to have a conditional use permit for this so that we can get this flagged before it?

We would still have a, we would, the way we talked about it right now is it would be a permitted use. We wouldn't go through the conditional use process for these.

So that it would be able to just kind of go wherever there's retail allowed?

Go anywhere where we would allow a retail smoking establishment. So not necessarily retail generally, and that's what's currently permitted. But we would need to have a conversation when we adopt the ordinance about the appropriate areas for these types of uses. So you wouldn't put it anywhere you allow retail. We could kind of tailor that to fit. Okay, so we

can limit that, the location of these.

So again, I would just at the initial glance probably look at areas like C2 District and then like the downtown area where we already have some establishments.

Okay, so then the big concern right now are these establishments are right now coming and opening near residences. So with this, that would help curtail that.

potentially, depending on the districts we would put it in.

Okay. And then the other thing, could we, would this help us for strict store hours? Or do we have to always allow them to be certain hours? Or can we, you know, there's a lot of concern with, you know, vape stores with like smash and grabs and things like that that are associated with some of these stores. And so, you know, like if they're open 24 hours or whatever that window is, is there a limitation we can put on that?

Let's take a look at that.

Um, and then I know you, you told us a lot about of like what they are not allowed to display anymore. So what is left for them to sell or display under these new ordinances?

So you get to display But what we've prohibited is the display of paraphernalia or smoking instruments. So, for instance, the tobacco sellers that we have downtown wouldn't be able to put pipes in their windows. Or cigars. Or cigars, you also have over here prohibit the marketing of cigarettes. products that aren't authorized by the FDA. So if you had a vape shop that popped up, there would be very few covered products that would even be eligible for any kind of marketing within the windows. So I think there'd be pretty limited. You're not going to see a lot in these windows.

Okay. So that also is like the verbiage of what is sold there.

That we can't regulate. So the sign itself, um, those have to be, our regulations have to be content neutral for the first amendment. So, uh, if you have to read the sign to determine whether or not it's okay, then you violated the first amendment is basically the rule of thumb. Um, so the signage, there's not a whole lot we can do. You can still put up a sign that says bill cigars or whatever it is, or, uh, you know, Johnny's vape shop. Um, that's,

can you like put like a whole list of we sell Whatever that may be.

If it fits within what you're allowed as far as your signage area for the property, then

yes. With the restriction of having only items that are FDA regulated and things like that, is that only for these establishments under that or could someone go to a gas station and buy something like that?

This would be citywide for any covered product. Whether it's a gas station or it's a drugstore or whatever may

okay

come down the road yeah okay convenience store they would all have the same restriction

okay so it's not just for tobacco they have derived products

ordinance that's why we're trying to have a really broad definition of these covered products okay so it's all just going to fall under there okay great

thank you all

right of course

Great questions. I just had, so don't, do we not, so if somebody applies for a business license, we don't really charge for them, charge for that right now?

We

charge for

a business license. Okay. But we would be establishing a new license if we put a tobacco license in place. Which would be a

separate definition

from a business license. Right, that would be a new license, a new fee, and that's what triggered it. In addition to. That's

what triggered it, yeah. In addition,

okay, yeah. Any new fee, basically. New fee, got it,

okay. And then... In terms of, I guess I'm curious, do you know if like our economic director has talked to like, you know, some of our more established businesses downtown or?

We haven't yet. We'll talk to them. We want to see what the board's kind of feeling was or direction on this. Once we had a sense of where we may be going, then we were going to. start those conversations so we definitely intend to do that and get their feedback but again we're trying to do this where it isn't necessarily punitive on right any business we're just trying to make sure that um these things aren't getting into the hands of miners that the display isn't up at the window that's that's potentially enticing minors we don't want them on the property and we want a good mechanism in place to enforce all of these things so that if it does occur then we can take action and revoke a license So from a monetary standpoint, it shouldn't have much impact on their business.

Yeah. I just, you know, I think I just, you Know, going forward, I think it'll, you know, we've had some establishments in downtown that, you know, have been around for a long time. And then in terms of the display, I think similar to what Kami said. So hopefully then kind of in those, in the way that if you were going to walk by the dispensary on Hanley road, you probably, I mean, unless you really know, you don't really know what they sell. I mean, I think that's the idea so that we don't have products that are, you know, childlike that are drawing people inside.

Or you may read the word vapes on the outside, but you're not looking at that actual product. You're just saying the word up there. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I'm certainly in favor of like moving forward. I do like the idea of trying to figure out, you know, where these can go in terms of figuring out zoning districts going forward to make sure, you know, I think that'll be an important part of explaining to the public that we would limit these to certain areas in downtown rather than areas that, you know, are adjacent to residential neighborhoods. And does anybody else have any other questions or So do we currently, is there a

fee for a liquor license?

There is. Yeah, it's 150% of the parallel state license fee.

So if we wanted a similar license here because there is additional enforcement checking everyone over 21 and everything, then it would have to probably go to the voters, right, to get approved? Is that right?

Yes, ma'am. Now, we can establish fees that are not hidden taxes under the analysis of the Hancock. That's why I say we'd really have to do the analysis. But one of the things that's called out is that the Hancock Amendment, in an effort to control government's ability to tax, said you can't go and disguise a tax as a license. So there has to be voter approval for a new license fee.

Okay. But it is something that we could do to help actually address the cost of this additional enforcement if we chose to. We just have to figure out how to do it under the handcuffs. You

can see how far we can stretch it. Yes,

ma'am.

Okay. Go ahead. Sorry, Susan. I thought you were done. Can I follow up with one question on that? Yeah. Kevin, I know you haven't looked at it, but just following that up, I can definitely see, for example, if you acquired a license of every citizen that lives in Clayton, that clearly is going to be a tax disguise as a license. But if it's basically going to be a license for a few businesses... I don't know if on the face that seems like it would be a tax, but maybe I'm not thinking right. Is that the way to think about this? Again, without putting you...

My description of the Hancock goal of controlling taxes disguised as licenses is my own gloss on the situation. The language of the amendment prohibits any tax license or fee being added without a vote of the people. So when license is specifically called out, that presents an analytical problem we'd have to wrestle with, but I would suggest may be problematic. There is ample case law about what a fee is within the meaning of the Hancock Amendment that distinguishes, quote, true user fees from from the voter approval requirement. So there is greater latitude to establish a fee which recovers the cost of enforcement when it's a V. But when you also are adding a new license, that becomes more complex analysis under Hancock. Does that address your...

Yeah, that's helpful. Thank you, Susan, for letting me kind of interrupt and follow up with it. Appreciate it.

That's great. The other question... that I had is if we're going with FDA approved products only, is that an issue for what's currently stocked in the average vape store or do they typically? What I'm wondering big picture. I mean, I want to answer that, but also let's pretend there's a store that has all glass windows to display things and we suddenly say you can't display things and let's pretend the store that's all kinds of different products and we suddenly say, you can't sell half those products. Are there any issues with that?

I don't know any instance here where it would be half of their products. The display thing would definitely be an impact, but we don't have any shops that have a significant portion of their inventory at the store that is made up of bait products, for instance.

Okay, but the non-FDA approved are legal to sell. They're just not something that we would be allowing in Clayton anymore.

Okay. Correct, potentially. We're looking at if we can cross-reference those FDA standards. If we can, we think that's a nice additional layer of regulation to put on. So we're still doing a little bit of research on that to see how we can do it. But yes, if we said you can only sell those products that the FDA has on their marketing approved list, then that could potentially impact the inventory of some establishments in the city.

And have we seen other... cities, municipalities who have done that.

I know that Anna Krane was looking at some different examples and thinks that it can be done, but we want to make sure of that. This is

I know that Anna Crane was looking at some different examples and thinks that it can be done, but we want to make sure of that. This is

very well thought through and very targeted to what the concerns were, and I appreciate that. That's good. Thanks.

On top of that, though, the Chesterfield ordinance just limits age. It doesn't really talk about product For the Delta, basically the Delta 8 stuff. It's just an age restriction. They don't prohibit it in Chesterfield.

They don't inhibit it outright, no. It talks about all kinds of things, not just age. Well, it's really getting at age, but it gets into, like it says here, possession, purchase. It's got all these different sections related to age and then enforcement provisions that go along with that.

And then the county ordinance that they're debating right now which is you know i know they um didn't vote on it that would prohibit delta eight would that and that would apply to us as a as a health something throughout the county like if they if they outlawed all the delta a products the county council did would that automatically then outlaw them here

If it's adopted under the county's preemptive health regulation, it would.

Do we know? I think their regulation was just an age restriction, though, to

start with. Oh, it was. Okay.

I thought it was. The state of Missouri has talked about some outright bans and different things, but have not been successful in moving any of that forward. I think the local – I'd have to take a look at the county regulation again, but I believe it was just trying to establish that basic – Age restriction, if I'm not mistaken. And maybe ban some of the edible type products like the state was trying to do previously. I'll take a look at it.

Okay.

But anything the county would pass, as Kevin said, yes. Under the health regulations. Okay.

Gary, do you have- This may have been addressed already, but David, is the area on Clayton Road between Hanley and Brentwood Zone C2 currently- I believe a portion of that stretch is. Okay. And so I think from your comment earlier, likely, generally speaking, downtown and C2 zone districts would probably be where this would be permitted as a use.

Typically a use of this intensity, this type of use, those are going to be the areas that are more appropriate rather than the C1, which is a neighborhood commercial district. Let me take a look at Clayton Road, that particular area. Section that you're mentioning.

Sort of getting at the likelihood that that stretch will have potentially a second smoke shop, albeit highly regulated once we're done here. I think that's

the C2 portion of Clayton Road is when you get east of Big Bend. So that's a C1 portion that's west of Hanley. So it would not be permitted in that particular section. The property where CVS is located is C2. That's the only C2 property west of Hanley. The rest are all east of Big Bend.

So there wouldn't be a second one allowed then?

But can they be sold at a CVS or something? Is that restricted?

Yes. To sell it, you'd have to get the additional license. You'd have to train your staff and there would be all the restrictions for the display of that merchandise.

Happened there without us.

But there would be nothing to stop CVS from selling any type of tobacco, vapor, any related product like that.

So the new potentially restrictions on C1 versus C2 for tobacco establishments would be for establishments that are deemed to sell, I guess, more than a certain percentage

of

tobacco products.

Yeah, it's going to be, well, the licensing would kick in for anybody selling those products. Again, a retail smoking establishment is primarily engaged in the sale of those things. So that has to be their primary use where you go in and The majority of their receipts, a substantial portion of that, I would say a half or more is going to be related to these particular products. Something like a CVS where it's just incidental. They might have some of these products behind the counter, something like that. It wouldn't be their primary use. That's still a pharmacy type use. But all of those licensing restrictions, all of those offense restrictions, because they're selling those covered products are going to apply.

Anyone who sells them.

this is this section here is just dealing with the zoning itself and saying that if your primary sales are going to be any of these smoking products anything that's listed here then you're only permitted in those areas where we deem it appropriate which again we're looking at the c2 district in the downtown is clayton

road east of big ben c2

c2 that's okay so like

just right outside the like demand neighborhood and things like that right So how could we help that neighborhood from having these establishments? Or, like, is there, again, something that would pop up in our radar that says, like, a CUP of some kind? Yeah.

a CUP would be the way to add an additional layer. But the CUP, the one thing that we need to be really careful of, the CUP doesn't give you an opportunity to say no. So when you say protect the neighbors, I mean, it would allow you to put conditions on the approval that would lessen the impact of the business or alleviate nuisances that could pop up. But it wouldn't give you the opportunity to say, no, that's not going to work here. And I think the issue we would run into and the reason we're just looking at it as kind of a permitted use is with all of the offense stuff and all the other things we have, they shouldn't be able to really create a nuisance. If you're regulating the display and you're saying you can't congregate and smoke outside and do those things, those are already baked into a part of the code where we can actually revoke a license, which we think is more powerful than trying to take action to get a conditional use permit for a condition put on approval.

Okay, so then there's just no heads up that a store would be opening there.

No heads up, but again, I don't know that there would be a way to stop it if you had the heads up. You would know, and you could come to the public hearing. You could say, I don't want this, but it's not an opportunity for us to say no. Historically, that's been something that's been really difficult for folks to understand as we go through that process is, hey, there's a public hearing. The Board of Aldermen's talking about this thing, but it doesn't mean we can just say no because. It just means we can say yes still, but we say you have to do these things to alleviate nuisances. If we can put all that stuff in these offense sections and the licensing section, then we're already covered as far as what you might want to regulate. So like when you mentioned hours, restricting the hours of operation, we can look at putting that in here somewhere where we don't have to fight that battle every time we get an application.

And the offense, the cost of the offenses that you listed at the beginning, is that something that we create or is that more state? imposed the yeah

we we've got this uh we so we created this but every ordinance i've seen is using these same numbers which makes me think that it could be pulled from a statute

okay

i haven't had a chance to look at the statutes to see if we can increase the amount then we will as you know our maximum penalty is going to be 250 anyway um but I've looked at multiple ordinances and everybody seems to have the same structure. So that makes me think it may be coming from state law.

Right. Yeah, I'm just curious. I mean, you know, $25 is nothing. So I think it'd be interesting, even if 250 I know is our maximum, you know, going 100, 150, you know, something where there's a little more teeth might be worth considering.

The biggest teeth in the end is the fact that you have a noted offense on file and that if we have the repeated offenses, then you can... potentially, you know, eye that revocation process, which is a much bigger hammer than, you know, even if we set all the, every offense is $250. Even that, I don't know how much that hurts, you know, these retailers in the end.

Yeah.

I just for like members of the public, like going forward, you know, we will or Jeff, I'm sorry, Jeff, do you have a your I see your hands up.

Yeah, I just got one quick question to follow up on the page. So I completely agree and understand what you're saying, David. The licensing is a bigger stick than the fines are just so I understand it. If A business has the second offense. They pay $100, but they get to waive that $100 as long as they can prove that they've trained their people. Am I understanding that right? Well,

the clerk would be fined $100. The owner wouldn't have an additional $100 penalty. So if you go in, the clerk will always get the fine. The question as to whether or not the owner does has to do with whether or not the is actually requiring the training and that it's certified that that training actually occurred. Gotcha. It's protecting the owner that's trying to do the right thing and the clerk's violating it. Gotcha. That makes

perfect sense. Okay. That was all I had. Thank you.

Mayor, can I just ask, I'm having trouble remembering what each slide said, but so if I understand it, if you're under 21, you're not allowed in this type of store. So I take it that means, and I'm not feeling sorry for him, that the proprietor has to card anyone who looks underage the minute they walk in the store, which I'm sure is doable.

Yeah. And I don't think I think if you're 21 and under now, you can walk in there. But I think that right

now, you can walk in any store that sells.

I think you can purchase. You have to be 21 and older to purchase most things. I guess not everything in the store, but you can still walk in. But this would prohibit people from walking in. But yeah, they would have to.

So theoretically, if you thought the proprietor thought someone was 18. you ought to immediately go up to them and say, are you 21? And ask for some identification. And would that, the failure to do that, is that also a violation the same as the sale to someone who's under 21? It would be a violation of the municipal code generally. Yeah. Okay. So that would also be subject to fines. Hopefully that would be enforceable. And if I understand correctly, so if this all comes to pass, the paraphernalia in a in a vape shop would have to come out of the display window and move further back in the store. Could be visible from the right away.

So whether they wanted to.

But there's still no ban on the sale of paraphernalia to someone who's under 21, although that may be sort of circular because if they're not 21, they shouldn't be in the store in the first place. But there's no specific ban on a sale of paraphernalia, only a ban on the sale of the product. The thought is they shouldn't be

able to buy the paraphernalia if they can't enter the premises. So the 21 restrictions should take care of the sale of the paraphernalias as well. Okay.

Anybody else? So I don't know. Is there anybody online or anything doing none of that?

i don't see any other

going so i think you know i think we've shown that um certainly a majority of the board at this point um you know supports i think moving forward establishing more restrictions there will be um you know more public comment i mean really times where you can address the board once an actual ordinance is proposed Um, I mean, I'm happy there's not very many of you in the audience. So if you have questions, you know, we don't, because we're not voting on anything, we don't usually entertain public comment, but you know, there's not a hundred people in here. So, I mean, if you guys have any questions, you're welcome to address us, but there will be many times in the future. Um, any zoning portion of this will go to the plan commission and then, um, Any proposed ordinance, any proposed ordinance would come before the Board of Aldermen and there would be public hearings where there would be public comment as well. But if you would like to come forward, sir, you're welcome to come forward. If you have questions, you'll just have to give your name and address for the record. Thank

you for... I'll see council for the feedback and just sit on their hands. I understood the discussion Redwood to one is that would not allow a future.

That's correct, would not allow a retail smoking establishment in the future.

Anything you pass is not retroactive,

right?

I'm the owner of the vape store. I still can display my stuff even after you pass

it. No, so what you couldn't do is locate a new one there. So we can't say you're no longer allowed to operate. And so that's the zoning piece of this, right? So we just talked about... I

still can display...

We could because we're doing that under a different section. So that's contained within the offenses section of the code, which is that as soon as that's passed, that's the law for everyone. Zoning is a little bit different where the use itself is legal nonconforming or grandfathered is what people call it. And so any existing retailer that's outside of a zone where it's permitted, they can continue to do so, but they have to comply with the licensing requirements and with those new offense requirements.

Last comment I have is, is I want my dog. Thank you. Thank you for your comments. Anybody else?

Does anybody else on the board have any other additional comments? Or Jeff, do you have any other comments?

No, I don't. Thank you. Okay.

Thanks for staff for getting on this so quickly. Yep.

Great job. Of course. So we'll go to work on drafting the actual ordinances themselves. We may have another question or two as we go through that process, but we've got a lot of good information and we're ready to go.

Thank you. Um, and then there, the other item on our agenda is related to, I guess, public and addressing us.

Yes. So we're calling it, uh, Oh, this is older. Okay. Uh, we're calling this addressing the board of Alderman. Um, and that's what we would call the section of the code, but really what we're talking about today are rules established for open forum and public hearings and those types of things. So what we're trying to do here is promote and organize an orderly process for public comment and public hearings, ensure that all individuals wishing to address the Board of Aldermen have an opportunity promote focused discussion and debate, and then enhance our record keeping. So that's what we're trying to do, trying to accomplish with the regulations that we'll talk about or the proposed ordinance. So under this ordinance, there would be three types of speakers that we would acknowledge. The first are speakers during open forum, speakers during a public hearing, and then applicants or their designee that are presenting a matter before the Board of Aldermen. So three distinct parties there. For those open forum speakers, and this is at the beginning of the meeting, right now we call it public comment request for petitions or something to that effect. During that open forum session though, you can address the Board of Aldermen on any matter over which the Board of Alderman has control. So you can't come up and tell us how, you know, unicorns are better than horses or something like that. You have to have some sort of matter of city business to bring up. You have to complete a speaker card in order to speak, and you have to submit that to the city clerk. We would require their name, their address, and the subject matter. And this is important from a record-keeping standpoint because a lot of times we'll have folks come up. We may not get their name correct or their address correct or what they were speaking about correctly attached to that individual. And that's good for our records going forward. And then also we would limit the time that an open forum speaker could speak to three minutes. So right now we don't have Any standard for that. So somebody could come in and talk about city business matters for an hour and a half, it would be up to the presiding officer of the mayor in that case to stop that speaker from speaking. But it's not ideal to shut somebody down when you don't have any sort of limit on how long they can talk. So we would recommend that we have a three minute time limit for anyone speaking during an open forum. And I will say, first of all, too, and I should have said this at the beginning, this is very common. This is best practice. Most city halls that you go into are going to have a timer that's in the chambers. I know the school board and Clayton does this as well so that the Board of Aldermen can see how much time is remaining. The speaker, everybody in the audience can see how much but you have these very set parameters on how long people can speak. And so what we're proposing here is really catching up with what I think is best practice. The second kind of speaker here is a speaker during a public hearing. And so that's someone here to address the Board of Aldermen on a matter that's taking place, a scheduled public hearing. So when we put out that public notice, especially things like zoning that require public hearing or tax levies to the budget, During that public hearing, a speaker can come up and talk about anything related to that specific topic on the public hearing. So you can't bring up some other matter that has to relate to the noticed item. They also have to state their name and address. So we won't necessarily require a speaker card for everybody that comes up during a public hearing. If we have a huge room that starts to get a little bit unwieldy, it's really nice to have that when you don't know why people are coming. But for a public hearing like that, we think we may be okay without a speaker card. We'll talk about that a little bit more internally, but at a minimum, state your name and address. Other than the applicant and the representatives, again, those speakers would be limited to three minutes. So just like open forum, if you have a public hearing, we have 100 people in here and they all want to speak. Each of them gets three minutes. So right now, again, we don't have any kind of time limit. And it's really just been up to residents being gracious enough to keep it as brief and concise as possible. So establishing a rule there. And then business matters before the Board of Aldermen. So if you are the applicant or their designated presenter, an attorney perhaps that's maybe representing their item or an architect or an engineer, they can address the Board of Alderman. And then other persons are not permitted to speak without securing permission from the mayor. So when this is just a regular business matter, an ordinance, a resolution, something like that, an applicant could come up and speak. But People in the crowd couldn't do that without the mayor saying, like the mayor did just a little while ago, if anybody wants to talk in this particular case, come on up and be heard. So they could still speak during open forum if they wanted to. That's a business matter at the city. And they could talk for three minutes during the open forum section, but they wouldn't necessarily have a right to come up during business hours and speak at that particular point in time. Only during a public hearing would that occur. And then some other considerations speakers may only speak on a specific topic once during a meeting. So during the public hearing, you could only come up and speak one time. You also would be prevented from speaking during the open forum about the particular item and then coming up again during a public hearing and saying the same thing or adding on to it. So you can only speak one time during the meeting on an item. Addressing individual members, the remarks have to be addressed to the Board of Aldermen as a body, not individual members on the Board of Alderman. Written communications are permitted. So if somebody can't attend for whatever reason, we're just saying that we will accept your written comment and distribute that to the board. We do that already. If June gets public comments for a business item that we have, then she'll distribute that. And then finally, the reading of protests. um individuals and representatives can be recognized to present protests or petitions for matters under consideration so it's rare but occasionally we'll have somebody that comes up on behalf of a lot of people with a petition and this is just saying that we will recognize that that petition as well so again we don't have anything in our code right now that that deals with any of these things we don't have any time limits established But we think it would be good practice to put that in place. It's something we've talked about internally for quite some time, and we've had those discussions with the board, but just never taken that action. So with that, I'll open it up to any questions you have. And Mr. O'Keefe, our city attorney, is certainly aware of these time limits as, again, most cities have them in place. So if you want to talk about how they function, he's a good resource for us.

Thank you, David. Yeah, I mean, I appreciate this. And I think this is actually a way to encourage more people to get up and talk because I think sometimes people come in and you do have people that are very respectful. They keep their comments to a couple of minutes, but then occasionally you have people that come in and talk for five or 10 minutes, which only hurts the, I think, the ability of other people to talk because they're exhausted by how much time things are taking. So I think it allows actually more people probably to feel good about talking. And it's, you know, I think it provides, you know, the longer I think we're up here listening to people, it becomes hard to, I think, take in all that information. But if people are limited to, you know, a little bit of time three minutes. I think it actually encourages more people to talk and express their opinion without potentially being exhausted by people who are kind of taking all the wind out of the room or taking all the air out of the room. So I would certainly be in favor of moving down this, you know, moving forward with this.

As you know, I'm very happy to see this Coming forward, and I agree with you, I think that when there's a structure around the public comment, people are more comfortable coming up to the meeting to say what they want to say. And my experience at school board, it was a very effective tool. The one thing that they did, and this may be just the nature of parents and teachers, but there was also a strict prohibition about nothing can be about a specific staff member. And that would be shut down right away. but I haven't seen that happen here, but that is something that was there. No, I think it's great. This is well put together again, and I support it.

Well, I haven't been to as many of these meetings as Mr. O'Keefe, but I've been to a lot of these meetings in various parts of the county, and I certainly think this is a great idea, and it's definitely time to do it. I agree with Susan and other comments. I think what the school board does is pretty effective to actually have that up on a screen because I've often found, to the extent that I would give presentations, that if you don't have anything like that, you're always surprised when your time is up. And it sometimes leads, frankly, to sort of disoriented thing because depending on who's running the meeting, they'll say, no, that's it, or we'll give you another minute. It's very helpful to know actually how much time you have left if there's any way to deal with that. Just a couple of things. I've seen people before, and I don't know we need to get in this level of detail, but I know at some of these meetings, someone will get up for a minute and say, I'd like to give my remaining two minutes to Mr. Smith, and you have to explain that that doesn't really work. You don't go from three minutes to five minutes. I think looking back particularly at the biggest turnout we've had last year, which was the whole Wash U Concordia situation, you could see how very helpful it would have been if we had that in place, I think we did get everyone a lot of opportunity to speak. So I don't think this would cut back on it, but we had, I know one resident who wanted to present their own PowerPoint presentation. And when that was denied, someone else got up and said, well, that's unfair. And they did point out, we didn't really have a rule about that, but it obviously was not productive. It's also helpful if we can at least remember to tell people You know, please, you know, if you have something that somebody else hasn't said, that helps a lot because otherwise you have 10 people say exactly the same thing over the three minutes. And the speaker cards, I think, are also very helpful. I know June tries to keep track of when people get up there and they say their name and address, but that's pretty tough when you don't have anything to rely on. So that's why the cards are very helpful. And it hasn't been raised, and I'm not really suggesting it, but I am wondering, since we do have sometimes some very controversial things that occasionally come before the plan commission and ARB, And sometimes those things end at the plan commission and ARB. Is there any thought about how we run those meetings? I don't know whether that makes sense, that same formality, but if we're doing it for the BOA, a lot of that controversial stuff does go to the plan commission and you'd kind of wonder, should we do something similar there? I think that's something to consider. Absolutely. That's all I got. Thank you.

Alderman Yorg, any comments?

Yeah, so a couple of things. I like the concept from an operational matter, but a couple of things that I ideally would like to spill out a bit more is contemplating how we're going to allow people to have more time, right? So if somebody's speaking for three minutes and we decide we want them to be able to finish, I think we should contemplate either it's got to be a hard stop or there's got to be something in the rule that allows for or contemplates the granting of extra time. Whether that be the mayor, whether that be the board. I just think we need to have it in there because the reality is it's going to come a time where we may want to grant somebody a longer time than three minutes. So that's kind of one. Second is... I know it doesn't happen very often, but every so often there will be this time where a question will be asked and we want to be able to respond. So either we have to forbid that or I think we need to factor that into whether a Q&A type situation is going to be added into the three minutes or we're going to stop the clock to answer the questions. I don't know if I know how I feel about how that should be answered, but I just think it needs to be contemplated somehow as we're kind of thinking through this. And the last one, and I forget, David, which one of the three speaking options, but it's about you can't speak unless permission of the mayor. And I just, I think if we're going to do this, I think we should contemplate a way to override the mayor. If there's a chance where the mayor is trying to shut down debate and the rest of the board wants to hear things that I think we need to contemplate some ability to do that. so that we don't get in that situation where you see in some cities where the mayor just shuts everything down and everybody's just kind of left. So whether that means the board can vote with a unanimous dissent or two-thirds or majority, whatever the number is, that allows for an overriding of that to allow people to speak if the board wants to hear it, irrespective of what the mayor may or may not want to do. So those are kind of the three things that popped into my mind that If we're going to do this, I'd like to make sure we've contemplated so that we don't run into problems later. That was all I have.

Yep. Yeah, Jeff, those are I think those are some great questions. Yeah. Kevin, do you have any immediate reactions to those?

I don't know if I have immediate answers, but I

call it thoughts.

First of all, I would suggest that it would be problematic to establish an alternative for the chair or someone to grant more time without establishing criteria under which that time could be granted. We're dealing with fundamental First Amendment issues here and to then put in an open-ended pure discretion to extend time, I think would be problematic. So there would have to be specific criteria. And as to that and your other point about the board's ability to overrule a runaway rogue mayor, which of course would never happen. I think Robert's Rules of Order resolves that and it's all still here. It's an adopted process and that would be an appeal of the ruling of the chair with respect to an order of business of the body so that there is already a process by which the board can overrule a ruling of the chair. And finally, as to the question of, yeah, you're up against it in 30 seconds more, again, that's an inherent role of the chair of anybody and under Robert's rules to provide some measure of grace and flexibility and enforcement, again, subject to the body's ability to say you've gone too far. So... I hope that addresses the points you raised.

So if the question and answer period, for instance, goes a little bit long and they have some, you know, June forgets to turn the clock off. Well, I mean, is that what you mean?

No, I would say if someone's speaking and, you know, as opposed to three minutes, get out the door, the mayor shutting them down. I think the mayor's ability to say, yeah, I see one more point. wrap it up, exercising some reasonable discretion under the circumstances so as to not provoke a breach of peace or not to create a problematic environment in the meeting. That's the chair's role is to keep order in that way. So I think the chair has inherent authority to enforce the rules in a manner that makes sense at the moment. As to Q&A provisions, I would suggest generally speaking, neither public hearings nor citizen comments are a time for Q&A. Now, if the board wants to inquire of a speaker or a member of the board wants to enquire of a speaker, I think that the chair can take that time into account in applying the time limit. but I wouldn't sort of make rules for it necessarily too much because it's not a good time for Q&A. You know, when a government entity or a government official responds to a question, they do so with certain expectation of accuracy and certain force. And to answer on the fly, when you have not had a chance to look at what else may be implicated by the question or what our experience has been around that subject, places you at a disadvantage that's unfair even to the person asking the question so that there is a fully informed response. So I don't think it is to be encouraged that these opportunities to be heard be turned into an interrogation of the board or of city officials.

It's counterproductive. Right, and I think that's a good point because I don't think there usually is... Q&A. I think occasionally there's questions posed to the board, but it's often, I mean, not that they're rhetorical, but people will say, I have these questions and we kind of listen and ponder them and perhaps answer them when everybody's done or we discuss it as a board, discuss the answer. I'm

sure Gary in all of his zoning presentations to jurisdictions has often seen and said that at the start of this or in the rules handed out or announced at the start, it is This is not a time to ask questions and we will not engage in dialogue. Right. Again, for the very reason that you don't want to say something inaccurate.

Yeah. It's also another reason you want the speaker card, because if there is a question and you do want to follow up with that individual about a question that they had, you've got their information and you know how to reach them.

That's another reason for the speaker cards also at public hearings is the ability to respond. Right. Accurate to the right person.

But you said, David, internally staff is still thinking

about speaker cards. We'll probably do it. The thing you run into is, especially with a larger public hearing, is you've got people in the room that don't intend to actually talk. They just want to watch the procedure. You see this happen all the time. And then they think of something and they raise their hand real quick. Right. And they come up and, you know, a lot of times you won't get a speaker card from them or, you know, you try to have them fill it out before they leave the room. But I... I do think as far as the rules go, it's probably good to put it in there to require the card. But I just know in practice, you'll get most of them. But in the bigger hearings, you just have a lot of people that don't intend to speak that end up doing so. But at a minimum, you want their name and address.

It would also be helpful, if I may, that at least... for the public hearings. At that deadline, I mean, a lot of places will require the cards to be turned in before the meeting starts, which I think is a good point so that you have a sense of what your meeting order is going to be and what's going to be involved. And that gives everybody a chance to do that too.

If I can ask one more question that came to mind was, the three minutes as opposed to five minutes, as opposed to seven minutes. Like what's the, I'm not necessarily opposed to three minutes, but I also haven't gone back to look at like the WashU debate, which is the biggest one I sat through to know if a three minutes is a good period of time for most people. Like I don't want to create a time that's going to short circuit what a normal, historically normal presentation of people was. So, I mean, David, Was three minutes pulled from the school district? Is that very standard to say three minutes? Or is there some analysis you all did to figure out what would be, let's call it normal and kind of limit it there? No, we've

not done an analysis. I think a lot of this is going to be up to the board and how much time you want to allow, but I will say that three minutes is very, very common. You'll see a few cities out there that may have a five-minute limit, but those can turn into some pretty long meetings. If somebody comes up and you're not engaging in Q&A and they're just making a concise statement about what their concern may be about something, three minutes is actually quite a bit of time. But if the board wants to have something longer, then we can...

I found three minutes is standard. And frankly, I think for most people, if you know you have three minutes, the good thing is for someone like me who tends to ramble without ever looking at notes, it sort of tells you if you're going to get it done in three minutes, you better pretty much write down exactly what you're going to say because you're running problems. So you tend to get more concise, actually articulate comments from people who know they have a time limit.

I would add also that I think three minutes is the predominant standard, certainly around the St. Louis area. And you'll find a lot of people don't use the full three minutes because they just want to come up and say, I'm against it or I'm for it without getting into an extensive perspective on it.

Okay. Thank you. Thank you all. That's helpful to kind of know. That was all I had, Mayor.

Thank you.

Yeah, I think guidelines and expectations from both sides is always helpful. I second what Gary says about doing this for the ARB meetings as well, because that I think would definitely come in handy. Regarding the speaker card questions, when do those get submitted? Like at the very beginning of the meeting or...?

Ideally, yes.

Before the meeting starts, people would gather and...

We would have them on a table up front along with a sign there that basically says, please fill out a speaker card if you intend to speak and turn it into the city clerk before the start of the meeting. So

then they get called to the stand? Okay.

That's correct. So the clerk would then give the mayor... or the presiding officer, the stack. And then you've got the topic already on the speaker card so you know what they're here to talk about and then they would be called up in the order that the cards were received. Where it always gets a little bit dicey though again is you're going to have people at public hearings that show up they don't think they're going to speak then they decide to the speaker cards are out there and i didn't turn it in advance and it's a question of whether or not you want to accept those so to put in the rules you have to turn it in in advance you're going to run into those situations where somebody may have they've never been at the city hall they've never been to a public hearing they miss the table because they see their friends or whatever it is and

right that would be my only concern with that

some

grace there is

if

that were written as a should not a must

Yeah.

I think

that would be better because I,

yeah. Yeah. Because we want to encourage, especially if somebody thinks of something, you know, we want to encourage people to, right. That's they want to say something. Yeah. And so like on

the speaker, okay. Sorry. I was just going to on the speaker card, is it, you write out your question or is it just your subject you're speaking about? I missed it. Just, just the topic. Okay.

Right. Name, address and topic. Yeah.

And I was gonna say one of the things with that too, right. And this is maybe just assumed in this, but Everybody who put in the card gets to speak first in that order. And if people haven't put a card in, then they have to come at the end. So it's another incentive to get people to, we're not going to stop them, but it gives them an incentive to get the cards filled out so they can get up and speak sooner than later. Again, I don't know if that's embedded in this assumed process that as we call them, we're going to call them from the cards first anyway, but something else to think about as part of this process.

And the other thing I would suggest is the speaker cards aren't just physically outside the room. A lot of times you'll have that where you can fill out the card electronically and send it to the clerk in advance of the meeting.

Oh, yeah.

That from time to time as well.

Be great.

I've just observed sometimes like 20 minutes into a controversial topic, people will be called upon and they'll say, nevermind. So it's not like people are compelled because they signed a card to feel like they got to get up there. Fortunately, a lot of times people will say, Everything's been said, nevermind. And they sit down. So it works that way too.

Great. David, do you feel like you got everything?

I believe so.

Okay. All right. Well, I think that's the last item on our agenda this afternoon. So do you have anything else?

I don't. That's it today.

All right. Thank you, everybody. Thank you for coming. All

right. Thank you all. Have a good weekend.

Yeah, you too. Bye,

Jeff.