BLAIR LEE III, Acting Governor

3115

House Bill No. 440 - Youth Camps

AN ACT concerning

Youth Camps

FOR the purpose of requiring the State Department of Health
and Mental Hygiene to license and regulate submit

legislation concerning the licensing and regulation__of

certain youth camps operated in this State; providing
definitions; providing penalties; providing for the
creation of an Advisory Council on Youth Camps; and
generally relating to the operation of youth camps.

May 29, 1978
Honorable John Hanson Briscoe
Speaker of the House of Delegates
State House
Annapolis, Maryland 21404

Dear Mr. Speaker:

In accordance with Article II, Section 17 of the
Maryland Constitution, I have today vetoed House Bill 440.

This bill creates a Youth Camp Safety Advisory Council
and allows the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, with
the assistance of the Council, to submit to the next General
Assembly, legislation to establish minimum safety standards
for youth camps.

This measure, as introduced, sought the establishment
of standards to provide to each camper under the age of 18
safe and healthful conditions, facilities and equipment and
adequate supervision and protect them from hazards causing
death or physical in-jury.

Amendments to House Bill 440 expressly exclude youth
camps operated by religious, educational, and other similar
corporations. The effect of this amendment is the exclusion
of an estimated 95 percent of the youth camps in this State
from the purview of the bill.

The provisions creating the Advisory Council do not
reflect these amendments. Although criteria for selection
of the Council is prescribed, the Council membership could
be composed without participation by owners or operators of
the profit-camps that are the subject of this measure.

I fully support the purposes of this bill. But I
believe that the protections which it seeks to establish