Upping Ante on Pool Safety: County Mandates Defibrillators

The Baltimore County Council Monday approved a bill that goes beyond a state law and requires any pool or swim club open to the public, including private facilities, to have an automatic defibrillator and a staff trained to use it.

Under the bill, called Connor’s Law, about 600 private swim clubs and beaches in the county will be required to have the life-saving devices and staff who are trained to use them during hours of operation.

The bill is sponsored by Council Chairman Tom Quirk, David Marks and Ken Oliver.

“We shouldn’t need an incident like the one involving Connor Freed to do this in Baltimore County,” said Councilman David Marks in an interview last week.

Anne Arundel, Harford, Montgomery and Queen Anne’s Counties have laws similar to the state law.

The associated costs of the law to affected businesses in the county was not immediately known.

The state and Baltimore County laws are named for Connor Freed, a 5 year-old Crofton boy who died in 2005 a drowning related incident at the Crofton Country Club. Automatic defibrillator was available at the pool but the lifeguards on duty at the time were not allowed to use it.

Baltimore County’s law imposes the same requirement on private clubs in the county.

The devices are already available at county-run public beaches and 30 recreation centers.

The bill was to go into effect in two weeks but an amendment unanimously approved by the seven-member council will delay implementation until Oct. 1—the same time that the state law goes into effect. County officials said the delay is necessary to give the county time to prepare related regulations.

The council also unanimously approved:

• A bill requiring new developments in the Towson Commercial district to provide bike racks equal to 4 percent of the total number of parking spaces available. Councilman David Marks, a Perry Hall Republican who represents Towson, said the requirement is needed as Towson moves forward with a number of high-profile mixed-use developments including the $60 million 101 York Road and $300 million Towson Row projects. 

“We need to promote other forms of transportation in the Towson core,” Marks said.

• A request to appropriate more than $453,000 in federal funds to reimburse the county for the costs of acquiring and demolishing five properties on 2 acres of land along York Road and Beaver Run Lane that have been repeatedly flooded, including a five-story warehouse that was originally part of the Catonsville Distilling Company.  The total cost of the project is estimated at nearly $4.6 million, including a 25 percent match in funding by the county.

• Funding totaling more than $2.7 million in grants to 40 cultural and artistic nonprofits. Nearly 75 percent of the county funding will go to six organizations: Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Maryland Zoo, Baltimore Museum of Art, Walters Art Gallery, The National Aquarium and Centerstage. The grants are part of County Executive Kevin Kamenetz’s budget for the fiscal year that began on July 1.

• A loan agreement to assist in the expansion of the Green Turtle  bar and restaurant in Towson.