Mid-Ohio Valley Health officials back off smoking arrests

Mid-Ohio Valley Health Department officials say they now request court summons for individuals found in violation of the department's Clean Indoor Air regulations.

Eight Wood County residents faced criminal complaints earlier this year after the department swore out criminal complaints against them for violating its anti-smoking regulations.

County magistrate judges issued arrest warrants for those complaints. Police have served or attempted to serve several of those warrants.

"It wasn't until recently that we realized you could make a suggestion to the magistrate," said Dick Wittberg, health department executive director.

Since that realization, Wittberg said the health department has requested violators be issued summons instead of arrest warrants. He said magistrates still could issue warrants, however.

"That's just a suggestion, the magistrate can do what they want," he said. "That's all it is, a recommendation."

And Wittberg said he's fine with the arrest warrants if magistrates decide the complaints merit them.

"I'm certainly willing to live with it," he said.

Wood County Magistrate Donna Jackson said magistrate judges would respect the health department's requests for summons.

"We'll follow that from now on, if that's what their request is," she said.

Jackson, who has served as a magistrate for two decades, said magistrates always issue arrest warrants if agencies don't make any requests for summons or warrants.

"We do warrants instead of summons every time, unless they ask for summons," she said.

"That has always been the policy. Our job is to see whether it falls within the code. It doesn't make any difference if we think it's silly or it's not," she said.

But Jackson said magistrates issue summons "95 percent of the time" agencies ask for them.

Lisa Bradley, 33, was arrested earlier this month in front of her 10-year-old autistic son after a health department sanitarian cited her for violating the regulations.

"He didn't understand what I did so wrong that a sheriff had to come," she said.

Bradley, an employee at Sandy's River City Perk in Williamstown, said she "does it all" but was working in the establishment's lottery room the day Judy Ashcraft, a health department sanitarian, visited.

She said the inspection was going fine until Ashcraft looked in the drawers of a counter that employees sit behind.

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