§ 31. With reference to the condition of premises, contagious diseases, health nuisances, etc.

The board of town commissioners shall have the power to enact ordinances, in such form as they may deem advisable, as follows: To provide for the sanitary condition and keeping of all lots, cellars, houses, water-closets, privies, lavatories, stables, styes and other places of like character, to provide for the examination and sanitation thereof, and for that purpose ordinances may be passed authorizing sanitary officers or policeman [policemen] to enter the premises suspected of being in bad or unsanitary condition and have the same cleaned at the expense of the owner, or abating such places as nuisances, and recover the occupant or owner the expense thereof; to prevent the entrance into the town or the spreading thereof of any contagious or infectious disease, and for that purpose may stop, detain and examine every person coming from places believed to be infected with such disease; to establish and maintain quarantines against communities and territories where it is suspected prevails any infectious or contagious disease; to establish and regulate within the town or within three miles thereof; and may cause any person in the town suspected to be infected with such disease, and whose stay in the town may endanger public health, to be removed to the hospital or other place that the mayor may select; to prevent from coming into the town any secondhand clothing, bedding or furniture, to remove from the town or destroy any furniture or other articles which may be suspected to be tainted or infected with contagious or infectious disease or in such condition as may generate and propagate disease; to abate all nuisances which may be injurious to the public health; may vaccinate or otherwise subject to medical treatment all persons having smallpox or other contagious or infectious disease; to recover, by proper action against those who may cause the same, all costs and expenses of removing and treating people having or suspected of having contagious or infectious diseases, shall have power, by force, to remove all persons from the town or to carry them to hospitals or other places selected by the mayor or town council and detain them therein.

(Priv. Laws 1911, ch. 219, § 31)