Bill to ban e-cigarettes, hookah smoking passes House

Publication Date: 2012-02-22

• Author:Ladd Brubaker
• Publication:Deseret News (UT)

The Utah House approved a proposal to ban the smoking of hookah pipes and e-cigarettes in public places, after opponents held a hookah pipe smoking demonstration on the Capitol steps then held signs in the gallery urging the bill's defeat.

The bill, HB245, would add those devices to Utah Indoor Clean Air Act's ban on smoking in public places.

Without the ban, e-cigarette smoking could become as commonplace in stores, restaurants or on public transit just like cigarette smoking once was, said the bill's sponsor, Rep. Bradley Last, R-Hurricane.

"We need to do something," Last told fellow lawmakers. "Just realize if we don't do anything (public establishments) can't stop people from using them."

HB245 would allow existing hookah bars to operate as they do now until at least 2017...