Lawmakers in Pierre gave initial approval to a measure that adds hookah pipes to the state’s smoking ban.
In Rapid City a number of hookah shops allow patrons to smoke tobacco products out of the pipes. The shops cite a loophole in state law that allows them to skirt the state’s smoking ban.
SDPB’s Charles Michael Ray has this story.
Lawmakers banned smoking in bars and restaurants a few years back but....
“Then along came hookah,” says Republican State Senator Craig Tieszen.
Tieszen is among the sponsors of a bill that adds hookah to the definition of smoking. The measure has a long list of proponents including the Rapid City Police Chief Steve Allender. During testimony he showed the committee a hookah pipe that was purchased by the police department.
“The user inhales on the hose. Which causes the heat and the fumes from the tobacco to be drawn down in through the water and then into the hose and then into your lungs,” says Allender.
Proponents say that hookah is in fact smoking and should be regulated as such. They included Dr. Kevin Weiland a Rapid City physician and longtime advocate of the state's smoking ban. No one spoke against the measure in committee. But at a Rapid City hookah shop, patrons like Dan Lauritsen say hookah is not smoking because the tobacco in the water pipe doesn't burn. Lauritsen says the hookah shops provide a positive location for youth between 18 and 21 to gather and converse.
Members of the State Senate Judiciary Committee passed the bill unanimously. It goes next to the full State Senate.