After continued complaints about smoking inside the Onset Water Department office building, the Board of Health Wednesday voted to fine the department $100 and require that all employees - smokers and non-smokers - participate in a state-sponsored smoking education program.

The Onset Fire District was last before the Board of Health in early December to address the same issue. At that time, the Board mandated that employees participate in an education program, but decided after a public hearing on Wednesday that the fine was necessary, because complaints are still coming in to both the Wareham Board of Health and the state Department of Public Health.

"There's still smoking, and [employees] feel that their health is in danger," said Health Agent Bob Ethier. "A lot of complaints are still coming in."

The decision to fine was difficult for the Board of Health. Though there have been complaints about smoking, health agents have not found any employees to be in violation of the state law since the district was last before the Board.

Bob Collett, director of the Cape Cod Regional Tobacco Control Program, was not sympathetic.

"I'd say it's almost impossible to not know there's a state law" prohibiting smoking in public buildings, Collett said. "There is absolutely no reason why there should have been smoking" in a municipal building.

Onset Water Department Superintendent Paul Bokoski has continuously maintained that his employees do not smoke inside the office building.

"Nobody smokes in that building," Bokoski said. "If my employees were smoking in that building, I'd have an issue with it."

But Ethier reminded Bokoski and the Board of Health that the complaints keep coming in, and ultimately the Board of Health decided to fine the Water Department and, again, require employee education.

"The only way, that I can reasonably see, to solve this is to do random checks," Board of Health member Dr. Thomas Gleason said following the vote.

"I just think people are on a witch hunt," Bokoski said before leaving.