Chap. 258.—An ACT to provide for the protection of the public health and to
that end to require certain establishments serving the public to have certain
sanitary facilities and to maintain the same in a sanitary condition; to provide
for administration and enforcement of the act; to provide for making certain
rules and regulations; to prohibit certain acts; to impose penalties for viola-
tion and to provide for appeals from action of the State Health Commission

Approved March 16, 1948

Be it enacted by the General Assembly of Virginia:

1. Section 1. As used in this Act, the term “Service Station”
means an establishment whose principal business is selling or
offering for sale gasoline, oil, automobile accessories and minor
automotive repair services; and “other establishments” includes all
historic shrines, wayside parks, natural wonders, terminals of
public transportation companies and ferry boats plying Virginia
waters; provided, however, this Act shall not be construed to in-
clude facilities of public service corporations under the jurisdiction
of the State Corporation Commission; nor shall apply to the
neighborhood type grocery and hardware store which, for the
convenience of local patrons, maintains a gasoline dispensing
service.

Section 2. Every service station and other establishment shall,
in order to protect the public health, comfort, safety and general
welfare, be subject to this act as to cleanliness and general
sanitation.

Section 3. Every service station and other establishment shall
be provided with approved toilet facilities, and an approved sewage
disposal device, an approved water supply for patrons and em-
ployees, and the premises shall be maintained in a clean and
orderly manner. Rest rooms and all facilities therein shall be kept
clean, and in a good state of repair. For the purpose of this Act
a sewage disposal device shall mean either a connection to a
public sewer, an approved septic tank system, or an approved out-
side pit privy. An approved water supply may be a connection to an
approved central supply, or from an individual well or spring
which has been protected against surface pollution.

Section 4. The State Board of Health shall enforce the pro-
visions of this act. In order to protect the public health the State
Board of Health is empowered and directed to make all necessary
rules and regulations governing sanitary conditions in and about
service stations and other establishments subject to the provisions
of this act.

Nothing contained in this act, however, shall in any way limit
the power of any city to prescribe by ordinance for the regulation
of sanitary conditions in service stations and other establishments
located therein.

Section 5. No service station or other establishment shall
operate after January one, nineteen hundred forty-nine, unless it
is operated in accordance with this act and rules and regulations
issued thereunder.

Section 6. In order to carry out the provisions of this Act, free
access to any service station and other establishment and its rest
rooms shall be granted the State Health Commissioner and any
of his officers or agents during all reasonable hours.

Section 7. Failure to comply with any provision of this Act or
any rule or regulation adopted thereunder shall, upon conviction,
be a misdemeanor and punished by a fine of not less than ten
dollars, nor more than one hundred dollars.

Section 8. Any person aggrieved by this act, or any rule or
regulation of the Board or Commissioner shall have the right of
appeal therefrom to the Judge of the circuit court of the county
or corporation court of the city wherein the service station or other
establishment affected is located.