House panel forwards ban of hookah and electronic cigarettes

HB245, the bill that would label Hookah and electronic cigarettes as smoking, was approved on Thursday, 2-9-2012 in Utah.  This bill bans Hookahs and electronic cigarettes in public places in Utah by labeling them as “smoking”

Hookah bars are allowed to use hookahs if they meet certain criteria; that they have to sell the contents of the hookah, everyone must be 21 or older to enter and at least 10% of its sales come from Hookahs.

Some e-cig users disagreed:

“I don’t want to bash anybody, but I keep hearing the reference to smoke. E-cigarettes are not smoke. It is water vapor,” said Angela Ross, who switched to e-cigarettes after 20 years of tobacco smoking.

But some legislatives state their reasons:

Teresa Garrett, of the Utah Department of Health, said regulations would clear up confusion about e-cigarettes.

“Businesses don’t know if they can exclude them or not,” she said. “This bill helps clarify that.”

Read the rest of the article here from desertnews.com.