GREENFIELD — Amid an influx of tobacco license suspensions for local convenience stores, as well as a revocation, Mayor Ginny Desorgher asked the Board of Health to have some “mercy” on local businesses.

Although the city cannot legally set tobacco rules and regulations less stringent than those mandated by the state, some board members agreed to review the city’s local regulations and ensure they are reasonable at this month’s Board of Health meeting.

“I know that we made more stringent rules here and that’s a good thing. I don’t want anybody to smoke. It’s a terrible thing, and it’s a habit that you get addicted to and that’s an awful thing. But the permanent revocation is problematic,” Desorgher said. “We have empty storefronts downtown, we have a Rite Aid that’s leaving as we speak, and I’m charged with trying to run a city.”

Earlier this year, the board voted to revoke the tobacco license for the convenience store Country Mart after it had been penalized multiple times between 2022 and 2024 for selling tobacco products to underage customers and selling flavored vapes, which cannot be sold legally in Massachusetts. In the last few months, Green Mart Convenience also has been penalized with fines and tobacco license suspensions for allegedly selling tobacco to underage customers.

State law mandates that retailers or business owners caught selling tobacco products to underage customers or violating the state’s flavored vape ban face mandated penalties of $1,000, $2,000 and $5,000 for their first, second, third and subsequent offenses within a three-year period, respectively. However, whether one or seven-day suspensions are issued for second offenses or whether seven or 30-day suspensions are given on the third offense, is under the discretion of a municipality’s Board of Health, according to the Massachusetts Association of Health Boards.

Last summer, the city discussed implementing new penalties to bring the city up-to-date with the state’s policy.

Public Health Nurse Megan Tudryn, in response to the mayor’s comments, said that a slim minority of tobacco retailers in the city violate local and state regulations, and that the majority of the cases handled by the Board of Health are in response to other businesses informing the Health Department of their fellow retailers’ violations. She said she could tolerate business closures if it means that fewer young people can purchase tobacco products.

“I’d much rather see an empty storefront and higher taxes than see a 12-year-old out vaping,” Tudryn said. “98% or so of the tobacco stores are following the rules. We just have a couple that continuously break the rules and a lot of the complaints that we’re getting are from other tobacco retailers saying, ‘This person’s selling flavored products.’”

Tudryn also noted that regarding a past violation for JC’s Market on Conway Street, she mistakenly penalized the business with a $300 fine for selling flavored blunt wraps, as opposed to a $1,000 fine in accordance with the city’s local ordinances, which had not yet been updated to reflect the state’s new regulations.

Tudryn suggested that the city work to keep its license suspension penalties standard among all businesses to prevent discrimination between different businesses. This issue was brought up during a public hearing in which the board voted to revoke Country Mart’s license in March. Wahab Minhas, son of owner Muhammad Hamayun, alleged that Health Director Michael Theroux had been unfairly targeting the family business for the same violations found at other stores in the city.

“We feel like we’re being targeted,” said Minhas at the March meeting. “Last year [Theroux] came in and harassed me and there was an incident of racial discrimination. He came in yelling and screaming, saying he’d put me out of business because I asked him about the logistics of everything. He said you people shouldn’t be in business and it’s an honor for your kind to do business here.”

Theroux, at last week’s Board of Health meeting, said he has remained cognizant of the fact that hefty penalties can have a detrimental impact on businesses which rely on tobacco sales to stay afloat. He added that he was more than willing to review local laws and see, within the scope of state law, what could be altered.

“I can certainly go over what’s specific to Greenfield and what’s state [law], what you could possibly change if you wanted to,” Theroux said. “You can certainly make a regulation that says every shop in Greenfield has to have [an ID] scanner if you want to. There’s certainly ways we can look at that to try to cut that from happening out of the equation. We can certainly look at that in the future. I don’t feel my role here is to be blindly punitive.”

Anthony Cammalleri can be reached at acammalleri@recorder.com or 413-930-4429.