SALEM, Ore. — Fearing that flavored tobacco is luring teens and young adults to start smoking, health advocates asked Oregon lawmakers to ban new hookah lounges. But the measure's biggest cheerleaders have now become its fiercest critics.
The state House set aside pleas from health advocates Wednesday and approved the bill by the narrowest possible margin.
The House's 31-29 vote sends the measure to Gov. John Kitzhaber, who will sign it, Kitzhaber spokeswoman Christine Miles said.
The measure was changed in the final days of the legislative session, and its primary sponsor fears those changes will allow hookah lounges to open in teenage hangouts like shopping malls and do more harm than good to Oregon's indoor smoking ban.
"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 but asked lawmakers to defeat it.
The bill's proponents say the changes were designed only to allow a small number of existing cigar businesses to continue operating. They deny that it would allow a significant expansion of hookah lounges and say its passage is critical to restricting the growth of flavored tobacco.
"There will be no hookah lounges in malls," said Rep. Matt Wingard, R-Wilsonville. "If we don't pass the bill, we are going to get a flood of hookah applications."
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.
The Oregon Health Authority has certified 26 smoke shops, which include both cigar and hookah lounges that are allowed to permit smoking indoors. The agency doesn't distinguish hookah from cigars, but just over half of the certified shops have the word 'hookah' in their name.
Public Health Division spokeswoman Christine Stone said there has been a small increase in applications for new smoke shops but it's unclear whether it's related to the pending legislation.
Tomei's original bill would have created tough rules for new smoke shops, intended to allow some indoor smoking at cigar shops while preventing most indoor hookah lounges. Smoke shops could have no more than four seats, they could allow smoking only for sampling purposes, and they couldn't sell food or drinks. The proposal passed the House on a 35-23 vote in April.
But the Senate watered down current smoking regulations, allowing shops to operate not just in stand-alone buildings but also in locations that share walls with other businesses — as long as they have an independent ventilation system. The bill would still ban new hookah lounges, but instead of the new restrictions being retroactive, hookah lounge applications will be allowed up until the day the governor signs the bill.
Those changes led a group of health and anti-smoking advocates to revoke its support for the measure, saying it makes the indoor smoking ban less effective.
"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," said Colleen Hermann-Franzen, advocacy and outreach manager for the American Lung Association in Oregon.
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.