(KCPW News) Hookah tobacco will not be banned in Utah’s bars and clubs after all… at least not for now. In an emergency meeting Tuesday, the legislature’s Administrative Rules Review Committee asked the state health department to hold off on its new changes to the Utah Clean Air Act, saying it didn’t have the authority to make them. Committee Co-Chair Representative Curt Oda says the health department went overboard in saying that lit and heated tobacco are the same thing.
“The code although it does not specifically define smoke in itself — it does talk about smoking — but the question was not in the smoking, it was the difference between lighted, which is in the code, and heated which is in their rule,” he explains.
Utah Department of Health spokesman Tom Hudachko says the department will begin working with the legislature to fix the law, and hopes it can be changed soon.
“We feel like we presented some very sound, peer-reviewed scientific data at the committee meeting that clearly showed that hookah smoke does pose a risk to individuals, the secondhand smoke that’s created from smoking hookah pipes, so we’ll certainly work with the legislature and do what we need to do to clarify the law and protect the public,” says Hudachko.
Representative Oda says a new law could be passed as early as the October 3rd special session.
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5 Comments
This is good news.
@viVape
NO this is NOT good news.
Let the Gov., Legislature continue to trample on your RIGHTS…
Conservatives want less gov, this is NOT less gov when they are breacking down businesses. If you dont want to be around Huka smoke, do go to a Huka bar or dont work then. Why do the rest of us have to live the way you want us to live…Freedom?
@viVape
HAHA… i must have misunderstood your statement direction, you are in favor of Huka, COOL
My comment is directed at those like Rep Oda and the Utard dept of health and who ever else is in favor of this ban.
Such a silly thing to ban, don’t these people have more important issues to take on?
@AE619
Yes I am in favor of the Hooka. I love hanging out and enjoying one over some stimulating conversation. But I agree with you our rights as citizens of this great country seem to be slowly going the way of the buffalo. It’ll be 1984 before you know it.