[HISTORY: Adopted by the Borough Council of the Borough of
Colwyn 6-22-1894 by Ord. No. 17, approved 6-22-1894. Amendments noted where applicable.]
Whatever is dangerous to human life or health, whatever renders
the air or food or water or other drink unwholesome, and whatever
building, erection, or part or cellar thereof is overcrowded or not
provided with adequate means of ingress or egress or is not sufficiently
supported, ventilated, sewered, drained, cleaned or lighted are declared
to be nuisances, and to be illegal; and every person having aided
in creating or contributing to the same, or who may support, continue
or retain any of them shall be deemed guilty of a violation of this
chapter, and shall also be liable for the expense of the abatement
and remedy therefor.
No house refuse, offal, garbage, dead animals, decaying vegetable
matter or organic waste substance of any kind shall be thrown on any
street, road, ditch, gutter or public place within the limits of this
Borough, and no putrid or decaying animal or vegetable matter shall
be kept in any house, cellar or adjoining outbuilding or grounds for
more than 24 hours.
A.
No person or persons without the consent of the Board of Health shall
build or use any slaughterhouse within the limits of this Borough,
and the keeping and slaughtering of all cattle, sheep and swine and
the preparation and keeping of all meat, fish, birds or other animal
food shall be in the manner best adapted to secure and continue their
wholesomeness as food; and every butcher or other person owning, leasing
or occupying any place, room or building wherein any cattle, sheep
or swine have been or are killed or dressed and every person being
the owner, lessee or occupant of any room or stable wherein any animals
are kept, or of any market, public or private, shall cause such place,
room or building, stable or market to be thoroughly cleansed and purified,
and all offal, blood, fat, garbage, refuse and unwholesome and offensive
matter shall be removed therefrom at least once in 24 hours, after
the use thereof for any of the purposes herein referred to, and shall
also at all times keep all woodwork, save floors and counters, in
any building, place or premises aforesaid thoroughly painted or whitewashed;
and the floors of such building, place or premises shall be so constructed
as to prevent blood or foul liquids or washings from settling in the
earth beneath.
B.
No blood pit, dung pit, offal pit or privy well shall remain or be
constructed within any slaughterhouse. Anyone offending against this
rule shall be guilty of creating and maintaining a nuisance prejudicial
to public health and shall be required to remove the nuisance within
10 days from the date of notice.
C.
The owners, agents or occupiers of all slaughterhouses are required,
during months of June, July and August and September, to distribute
twice in each week not less than 25 pounds of chloride or lime about
their premises and also to remove the contents of any manure pit or
manure pile on the premises, once in each week, said premises and
contents of manure pits being hereby declared to be nuisances prejudicial
to public health, unless subject to frequent disinfection and cleaning
as herein indicated. No pigs or hogs shall be kept in the same enclosure
with a slaughterhouse, nor shall they be fed, there or elsewhere,
upon the offal of slaughtered animals.
No person or company shall erect or maintain within the limits
of this Borough any manufactory or place of business dangerous to
life or detrimental to health or where unwholesome, offensive or deleterious
odors, gas, smoke, deposit or exhalations are generated, such as tanneries,
refineries, manufactories of starch and glue, leather, chemicals,
fertilizers, gas, etc., without the permit of the Board of Health,
and all such establishments shall be kept clean and wholesome so as
not to be offensive or prejudicial to public health, nor shall any
offensive or deleterious waste substance, refuse or injurious matter
be allowed to accumulate upon the premises or be thrown or allowed
to run into any public waters, stream, watercourse, street, road or
public place. Every person or company conducting such manufacture
or business shall use the best approved and all reasonable means to
prevent the escape of smoke, gases and odors and to protect the health
and safety of all operatives employed therein.
A.
The business of bone- and horse-boiling shall not be allowed unless
conducted under cover, the building is provided with smoke-consumers
and a due regard is had to cleanliness in the disposition of the offal.
No bone-boiling establishment or depository of dead animals shall
be kept or erected in any part of this Borough without a permit from
the Board of Health.
B.
No permit shall be granted to any person or persons to carry on the
business of boiling bones and dead animals until after a careful inspection
of the locality, buildings and apparatus and of the plans for conducting
the business, by an accredited inspector of the Board of Health.
C.
No bone-boiling establishments or depositories of dead animals shall
be kept or erected in or near a thickly inhabited neighborhood.
D.
The floors of all bone-boiling establishments and depositories of
dead animals shall be paved with asphalt or with brick or stone, well
laid in cement or with some other impervious material, and shall be
well drained; and all such establishments shall have such an adequate
water supply as will enable thorough cleanliness to be maintained.
E.
The boiling of bones and dead animals, etc., shall be conducted in
steamtight kettles, boilers or caldrons, from which the foul vapors
shall first be conducted through scrubbers or condensers, and then
into the back part of the ash pit of the furnace fire, to be consumed,
or by other apparatus equally efficient in preventing or counteracting
the offensive effluvia.
F.
When bones are being dried after boiling, they shall be placed in
a closed chamber, through which shall be passed, by means of pipes,
large volumes of fresh air, the outlet pipe terminating in the fire
pit.
G.
All proprietors of bone-boiling establishments not having on the
first day of September 1894 permits to carry on the business and violating
this chapter shall be fined for every such offense, and for each month's
continuance of the same, after notice, shall also be liable to an
indictment at common law for creating and maintaining a nuisance.
H.
The Secretary of the Board of Health shall have provided a book in
which to enter the names of all persons engaged in the business of
boiling bones and having depositories of dead animals; also the location
of works and appliances as reported by the inspector, whether licensed
or not, the number and date of the permit, and remarks.
The keeper or keepers of a livery or other stable shall keep
his or their stable and stableyard clean and shall not permit, between
the 15th day of May and the first day of November, more than two wagonloads
of manure to accumulate in or near the same at any one time, except
by the express permission of the Board of Health, nor shall any manure
be removed between the dates aforesaid, except between 12:00 midnight
and two hours after sunrise, without a written permit from the Board
of Health, nor shall any manure be removed except in a tight vehicle,
so protected that the manure, in the process of removal, may not be
dropped or left in any street, road, lane or way of the Borough.
No pig pens shall be built or maintained, and no pigs shall
be kept, within the limits of this Borough.
A.
No privy well shall hereafter be dug within the limits of this Borough
to a greater depth than five feet. Said well must be securely lined,
bottom and sides, with not less than a nine-inch wall of hard bricks
laid in portland cement, and the entire inner surface shall be covered
with the same, and no privy vault, cesspool or reservoir into which
a privy, water closet, cesspool, stable or sink is drained, unless
it is watertight, shall be constructed, dug or permitted to remain
within 150 feet of any well, spring or other source of water used
for drinking or culinary purposes, unless the surface of such vault,
cesspool or reservoir is at a lower level than the bottom of such
well. Earth privies and earth closets, with no vault, pit or depression
below the surface of the ground, shall be abolished within 90 days
after notice to that effect having been served by the Board of Health.
B.
No privy well or cesspool shall be permitted to become so full as
to overflow, and it shall be the duty of every freeholder to cause
all cesspools or any privy wells upon property owned by him or her
within the limits of this Borough to be cleaned out when full or in
such condition as to endanger the public health.
A.
All sewer drains shall be watertight within the limits of this Borough.
B.
No sewer drain shall empty into any lake, pond or other source of
water used for drinking purposes, or into any standing water, within
the jurisdiction of this Borough.
C.
The sewage from each building on every street provided with a common
sewer shall be conducted into said sewer.
D.
That portion of the house drain which is outside of the building
and more than four feet from the foundation walls shall be constructed
of iron pipe or vitrified drainpipe.
E.
That portion of the drainpipe outside or under the building and within
four feet of the foundation walls, together with the soil pipe, shall
be constructed of cast iron with lead joints, or of wrought iron pipe
with screwed joints, and in either case protected from rust. The waste
pipe connected with the conductors from the roofs, and other pipes
inside the building, or outside and within four feet of the foundation
walls, shall likewise be constructed of cast iron with leaded joints,
or of wrought iron with screwed joints.
F.
The house drain and other pipes for the conveyance of sewage shall
be laid with uniform grade and with a fall of not less than one inch
in four feet, except in those cases where the Board of Health may
permit otherwise.
G.
All pipes connecting a water closet with a soil pipe shall be trapped,
each separately. All waste pipes shall be trapped, each separately,
and close to the connection with each bath, sink, bowl or other fixture,
unless adequate provision is made for downward ventilation through
said waste pipes, in which case one trap may serve for several fixtures.
H.
All soil pipes shall be carried at their full size through the roof
and left open. A provision shall also be made for admitting air to
the house drain side of the main trap, if such trap exists.
I.
The joints in the vitrified pipe shall be carefully cemented under
and around the pipe, and the joints in the cast-iron pipe shall be
run and caulked with lead.
J.
All changes in direction shall be made with curved pipes. All joints
and pipes shall be made airtight. The whole work shall be done by
skillful mechanics in a thorough and workmanlike manner, and satisfactorily
to the Board of Health.
K.
Before proceeding to construct any portion of the drainage system,
or the water closet or cesspool, of a hotel, tenement, dwelling house
or other building, the owner, builder or person constructing the same
shall file with the Board of Health a plan thereof, showing the whole
drainage system, from its connection with the common sewer to its
terminus in the house, together with the location and size of all
branches, traps, ventilating pipes and fixtures; and before covering
up any part of said drainage system, the owner, builder or person
constructing the same shall notify the Board of Health that the same
is ready for inspection, and it shall be the duty of the Board to
inspect the same within 48 hours after receiving such notice and,
if satisfactory, issue its permit to go ahead and finish the same.
L.
All drains, water closets, privy wells and cesspools now built shall
be reconstructed whenever in the opinion of the Board of Health it
may be necessary.
A.
The following-named diseases are declared to be communicable and
dangerous to the public health, namely: smallpox (variola, varioloid),
cholera (Asiatic or epidemic), scarlet fever (scarlatina, scarlet
rash), measles, diphtheria (diphtheritic croup, diphtheritic sore
throat), typhoid fever, typhus fever, yellow fever, spotted fever
(cerebrospinal meningitis), relapsing fever, epidemic dysentery, hydrophobia
(rabies), glanders (farcy) and leprosy, and shall be understood to
be included in the following regulations, unless certain of them only
are specified.
B.
Whenever any householder knows that any person within his family
or household has a communicable disease, dangerous to the public health,
he shall immediately report the same to the Board of Health, giving
the street and number, or location of the house.
C.
Whenever any physician finds that any person whom he is called upon
to visit has a communicable disease dangerous to the public health,
he or she shall immediately report the same to the Board of Health,
giving the street and number or location of the house, upon the receipt
of which report the Secretary shall immediately notify the teacher
or principal of every school, academy, seminary or kindergarten in
the Borough, requesting said teachers or principals to dispense with
the attendance of all pupils residing in the family in which such
disease exists. No physician who may, in good faith, in obedience
to this chapter, report a case as one of communicable disease which
subsequently proves not to be such shall be liable to a suit for damages
for such error in reporting. It shall be the duty of such physician
and of all other attendants upon persons affected with such diseases
to avoid exposure to the public of any garments or clothing about
their own persons that may have been subjected to the risk of infection.
D.
No person shall, within the limits of this Borough, unless by permit
of the Board of Health, carry or remove from one building to another,
any patient affected with any communicable disease, dangerous to the
public health, nor shall any person by any exposure of any individual
so affected, or of the body of such individual, or of any article
capable of conveying contagion or infection, or by any negligent act
connected with the care or custody thereof, or by a needless exposure
of himself or herself cause or contribute to the spread of disease
from any such individual or dead body.
E.
There shall not be a public or church funeral of any person who has
died of Asiatic cholera, smallpox, typhus fever, diphtheria, yellow
fever or scarlet fever, and the family of the deceased shall in all
such cases limit the attendance to as few as possible and take all
precautions possible to prevent the exposure of other persons to contagion
or infection; and the person authorizing the public notice of death
of such person shall have the name of the disease which caused the
death appear in such public notice.
F.
No person suffering from, or having very recently recovered from,
smallpox, scarlet fever, diphtheria, yellow fever or measles shall
expose himself, nor shall any one expose any one under his charge
in a similar condition, in any conveyance, without having previously
notified the owner or person in charge of such conveyance of the fact
of such condition as above stated. It shall be the duty of the Board
of Health to have this section printed on a card and to furnish the
owner of each public conveyance with a copy thereof; and it shall
be the duty of the owner of such conveyance to display such card in
such conveyance; and the owner or person in charge of such conveyance
must not, after the entry of any other person infected into his conveyance,
allow any other person to enter it without having sufficiently disinfected
it under the direction of the Board of Health.
G.
No person shall let or hire any house or room in a house in which
a communicable disease, dangerous to the public health, has recently
existed until the room or house and premises therewith connected have
been disinfected to the satisfaction of the Board of Health; and for
the purpose of this section, the keeper of a hotel, inn or other house
for the reception of lodgers shall be deemed to let or hire part of
a house to any person admitted as a guest into such hotel, inn or
house.
H.
Members of any household in which smallpox, diphtheria, scarlet fever
or measles exists shall abstain from attending places of public amusement,
worship or education and, as far as possible, from visiting other
private houses.
I.
The clothing, bed clothing and bedding of persons who have been sick
with any communicable disease, dangerous to the public health and
the rooms which they have occupied during such sickness, together
with their furniture, shall be disinfected under the direction of
the Board of Health.
No animal affected with a communicable disease dangerous to
the public health shall be brought or kept within the limits of this
Borough except by permission of the Board of Health, and bodies of
animals dead of such disease or killed on account thereof shall not
be buried within 500 feet of any residence, nor disposed of otherwise
than as said Board or its Health Officer shall direct.
No milk which has been watered, adulterated, reduced or changed
in any respect from its natural condition by the addition of any foreign
substance shall be brought into, held, kept or offered for sale at
any place in this Borough.
No meat, fish, birds, fowl, fruit, vegetables, milk and nothing
for human food, not being then healthy, fresh, sound, wholesome, fit
and safe for such use, nor any animal or fish that died by disease
and no carcass of any calf, pig or lamb which died by disease and
no meat therefrom shall be brought within the limits of this Borough
or offered or held for sale as food anywhere in said Borough.
It shall be the duty of the occupant of every house within the
limits of this Borough in the month of May, in each and every year,
to cleanse the cellars thereof of all dirt, vegetable and other impure
matter calculated to engender disease and to cause them to be thoroughly
whitewashed with fresh lime.
A.
It shall be the duty of every adult and every parent, guardian or
master of every minor residing within the limits of this Borough who
has not had smallpox, or been vaccinated so as to have taken cowpox
regularly, to be, if an adult, vaccinated or, in the case of a minor,
to cause such minor to be vaccinated within six months from the date
of the passage of this chapter, unless unable to do so by reason of
poverty; and it shall be lawful for any regularly educated physician
residing in this vicinity on application of such resident adult or
parent, master or guardian of such resident minor as are unable by
reason of poverty to pay the vaccination fee, to vaccinate said adult
or said minor and present his bill therefor properly authenticated,
for an amount not exceeding the fee usually charged for such services
and to recover the same of and from the corporation.
B.
No pupil shall be allowed to attend the public schools in this Borough
who has not been vaccinated successfully within seven years.
No parent, guardian or master in whose house or family there
shall have been a communicable disease dangerous to public health
shall permit any child residing in said house or family to attend
any public, private or Sunday school, after the cessation of said
disease, within a period of 10 days after the house shall have been
thoroughly disinfected and cleansed; and it shall be the duty of the
School Board to have this section printed on cards, mentioning the
names of diseases declared communicable and dangerous to the public
health in this chapter and posted in every schoolroom in this Borough,
and it shall be the duty of each teacher to read the section to the
school at least once a month and whenever any epidemic shall appear;
and it shall be the duty of the Board of Health to have this section
printed on cards and furnished to every private school, academy, seminary,
kindergarten and Sunday school in this Borough and to request the
person or persons in charge of such private institutions to post such
cards in conspicuous places and read the section to the school at
least once a month, and whenever any epidemic shall prevail.
Every undertaker or other person who may have charge of the
funeral of any dead person shall procure a properly filled out certificate
of the death and its probable cause, in accordance with the form prescribed
by the State Board of Health, and shall present the same to the designated
officer or member of the Board of Health and obtain a burial or transit
permit thereupon, at least 24 hours before the time appointed for
such funeral; and he shall not remove any dead body until such burial
or transit permit shall have been procured.
Every person who acts as a sexton or undertaker or cemetery
keeper, within the limits of this Borough, or who has the charge or
care of any tomb, vault, burying ground or other place for the reception
of the dead, or where the bodies of any human beings are deposited,
shall so conduct his business and so care for any such place above
named as to avoid detriment or danger to public health; and every
person undertaking preparations for the burial of a body dead from
communicable diseases as hereinbefore enumerated shall adopt such
precautions as the Board of Health may prescribe to prevent the spread
of such disease. No dead body shall be exhumed and removed between
the months of May and October, inclusive, and no body dead from smallpox
shall ever be exhumed and removed.
[Amended 11-10-1988 by Ord. No. 447]
A.
Every person violating § 84-3A, 84-4, 84-5A, through G,
84-9K, 84-10B, C, D, E, F, G and I, 84-11, 84-12 or 84-13 of this
chapter shall be liable, for every such offense, upon conviction before
any mayor, justice or magistrate, to a fine of not less than $10 nor
more than $1,000 at the discretion of the convicting mayor, justice
or magistrate, besides costs, which the convicting mayor, justice
or magistrate may inflict if he sees fit.
B.
Every person violating any other section or provision of this chapter
shall be liable for every such offense, upon conviction before any
mayor, justice or magistrate, to a fine of not less than $5 or more
than $1,000 at the discretion of the convicting mayor, justice or
magistrate, besides costs, which the convicting mayor, justice or
magistrate may inflict if he sees fit.
All police officers, constables and watchmen are enjoined, and
all citizens are respectfully desired, to give information to the
Board of Health of any violation of this chapter so that the sanitary
laws providing for the cleanliness and health of the Borough may be
fully executed and all offenders promptly punished.
