SALEM, Ore. — Fearing that flavored tobacco is luring youngsters to start smoking, health advocates asked Oregon lawmakers to ban new hookah lounges. They got their wish in a bill moving through the Legislature, but now the bill's biggest cheerleaders have become its fiercest critics, and they're begging lawmakers to kill it.
The measure was changed in the final days of the legislative session, and its primary sponsor fears those changes would allow hookah lounges to open in teenage hangouts like shopping malls and do more harm than good to Oregon's indoor smoking ban. It's up for a final vote in the House on Wednesday.
"This could be just a real destructive piece of legislation if it passes," said Rep. Carolyn Tomei, a Milwaukie Democrat who introduced the original bill and is now asking lawmakers to defeat it.
Hookah lounges allow people who are at least 18 years old to smoke flavored tobacco from a water pipe. They often sell food, play music and create a social atmosphere like a coffee shop.
"This is seen as a very social thing by teens. It's a place to hang out, do your homework, be with your friends," said Colleen Hermann-Franzen, advocacy and outreach manager for the American Lung Association in Oregon. "So we're concerned that, because of the candy-flavored tobacco and the social environment, the hookah lounges are going to addict the next generation of tobacco users."
Tomei's original bill would have created tough rules for new hookah lounges so it would be virtually impossible to operate them profitably. They could have no more than four seats, they could allow smoking only for sampling purposes, and they couldn't sell food or drinks. It passed the House on a 35-23 vote in April.
The Senate watered down the regulations, eliminating a requirement in the Indoor Clean Air Act that smoke shops and cigar bars — including hookah lounges and cigar shops — operate only in stand-alone buildings that don't share walls with other businesses. Under the new language, they'd be able to operate in strip malls and other multi-business buildings as long as they have an independent ventilation system.
The changes also would push back the effective date and allow a flood of applications for new hookah lounges before the measure takes effect.
Those changes led a group of coalition and anti-smoking advocates to revoke its support for the measure, saying it makes the 2007 indoor smoking ban less effective.
The House vote comes a week after tearful testimony in the Senate from lawmakers who recalled loved ones who died from smoking-related illnesses. They were torn between their desire to stop the spread of hookah and their reluctance to potentially allow one last flood of new lounges featuring the flavored tobacco.