Manchester-by-the-Sea — Real Truth MA

Decision: Adopted 3–1
Date: October 24, 2024
Town Meeting: Voted 81–76 to overturn, Apr 28, 2025
Result: Regulation stands

Manchester-by-the-Sea, a North Shore town of about 5,600 residents, adopted a Nicotine-Free Generation regulation on October 24, 2024 by a 3 to 1 vote. It took effect January 1, 2025, with enforcement beginning April 1.

This is the one town on this site where residents voted on the regulation after it was already in force — and voted against it. At Town Meeting on April 28, 2025 the motion to overturn carried, 81 to 76, with four abstentions. Because that vote was non-binding, the Board of Health was not required to act on it and did not. The regulation remains in effect.

The town's 276 records span August 2024 through May 2025 and include the Board's own correspondence about the overturn vote.

What the records show

The idea entered the town through a single Board of Health member. The minutes record Leah Peavey telling the Board “that she herself had brought the proposal to the Board,” and citing a tobacco-related family death together with her medical work experience.
The Board was already revising its tobacco regulations at the direction of the North Shore/Cape Ann Tobacco Policy Program, a regional program funded by the state’s Tobacco Cessation and Prevention Program, which supplied the template.
When local retailers and their association objected, the regional program’s director, Joyce Redford, replied to Health Director Wendy Hansbury on October 23, 2024 — the day before the hearing — and copied Anthony Ishak, the pharmacist who had promoted the policy in Brookline.
Mark Gottlieb of Northeastern’s Public Health Advocacy Institute submitted written testimony the town had not solicited. The hearing was attended largely by people from outside Manchester-by-the-Sea, on both sides.
This is the one town on this site where residents voted on the regulation after it was already in force. At Town Meeting on April 28, 2025 the vote to overturn was 81 yes, 76 no, 4 abstentions. Because the vote was non-binding the Board was not required to act on it, and did not. Writing to Peavey the next day, Hansbury observed: “It was so close that the BOH is justified saying that you side with the ½ that want to protect youth.”

How the record unfolded — from the town’s own documents

Full briefing memorandum

A detailed analysis of Manchester-by-the-Sea’s complete production, with document excerpts and sourcing.

Read the memo Download PDF

Document Library

The complete public-records production, as released by the custodian.

Every document below opens as a PDF. Files the custodian produced in other formats — Word, Excel, Outlook messages — were converted for readability, and the file as produced sits beside each one behind a small grey tag (.DOCX) so the original is always one click away. Nothing in the production has been withheld, compressed or edited: the file count above is every file the custodian released. A few archives and calendar files cannot be rendered as PDF and appear in their original format, marked as such.

276 entries · 282 files

FOIA Request - Manchester-by-the-Sea 12.29.251 files