The DBI table_info method is widely supported by DBD drivers and can be used to implement a preemptive test for the existance of a database table:

sub does_table_exist {
    my ($dbh,$table_name) = @_;

    my $sth = $dbh->table_info(undef, 'public', $table_name, 'TABLE');

    $sth->execute;
    my @info = $sth->fetchrow_array;

    my $exists = scalar @info;
    return $exists;
}

foreach my $table ('foo', 'bar', 'items') {

    if (does_table_exist($dbh, $table)) {
        print "table $table exists\n";
    }
    else {
        print "table $table does not exist\n";
    }
}
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