Section 64. No person shall be ineligible for appointment and no person shall be denied employment as a police officer in the Massachusetts bay transportation authority police force because of failure to attain a minimum height unless the administrator, in response to the written request of the appointing authority that no person under a specified height be certified for appointment to such position in said force, has established a minimum height requirement for the position. Such request shall include the findings of a validation study demonstrating the necessity for a minimum height for said position in said force, and such other evidence as the administrator may require.

A person shall be ineligible to become an applicant for an examination for original appointment to the position of police officer in the Massachusetts bay transportation authority police force if he will not have reached his twenty-first birthday on or before the final date for the filing of applications for such examination, as stated in the examination notice.

As a prerequisite to appointment to the position of police officer in the Massachusetts bay transportation authority police force or for appointment as a correction officer, a person shall have graduated from high school, or received a high school graduation equivalency certificate from the department of education, or served for three years or more in the armed forces of the United States, having last left such armed forces under honorable conditions. Subsequent to January first, nineteen hundred and eighty-eight, no person who smokes any tobacco product shall be eligible for appointment as a uniformed member of the Massachusetts bay transportation authority police force, or of the public works building police, and no person so appointed after said date shall continue in such office or position if such person thereafter smokes any tobacco product; the personnel administrator shall promulgate regulations for the implementation of the provisions of this sentence.