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11113/2014 Savage heading for ban on hookah lounges.e-cigarettes i Star Tribune Farmer-Lies also showed council members a hookah. a water pipe that several people can use at once to smoke flavored tobacco. Hookahs. once used mostly by people of Middle Eastern descent. are now popular with college students. Farmer-Lies said. And one 90-minute hookah session can be as harmful as smoking 200 cigarettes. he added. Mayor Janet Williams asked if a ban could be considered discriminatory. "It's a cultural thing." Schwarzhoff said. so a hookah lounge ban would likely affect certain groups more than others. But from a legal perspective. it couldn't be considered discriminatory unless hookah lounges— as opposed to cigar or a-cig shops— were singled out. Council member Ai McColl said he wanted to keep things simple. prohibiting all a-cig use in places where smoking is banned and prohibiting sampling. All council members agreed. However. the city shouldn't get into regulating the price of little cigars. said council member Gene Abbott. Harmful or helpful? E-cigs are battery-powered devices that vaporize a liquid solution that users inhale in a process called "vaping." The liquid usually contains nicotine and is available in many flavors. Because users inhale vapor. not smoke. e-cigarettes have been billed as a healthier. cleaner and less intrusive alternative to cigarettes. Some contend that e-cigs can be used to help people quit smoking conventional cigarettes. Others say more needs to be learned about their effects. A 2013 study conducted by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention linked smoking e-cigs with future cigarette smoking. More than 250.000 youth who had never smoked a cigarette used e-cigs in 2013. the study found. up from 79.000 in 2011. Among nonsmoking youth who had tried e-cigs. 44 percent said they intended to smoke conventional cigarettes in the next year. compared with 22 percent of those who had never used e-cigs. Several weeks ago. the World Health Organization urged governments to pass more stringent rules for e-cigs. banning them or keeping them away from kids and teens until more is known. Other cities' approaches Duluth and Mankato were two of the first Minnesota cities to ban e-cigs in public places. Certain businesses. like the Mail of America. have banned them. too. Eden Prairie went the same direction as Savage. banning e-cigs anywhere smoking is banned by the Minnesota Clean Indoor Air Act. Other cities have adopted more nuanced approaches. In Shakopee. no smoking is allowed in retail stores. with the exception of e-cigs. The city wasn't comfortable banning a-cig smoking when they didn't know enough about its effects. Schwarzhoff said. In Minneapolis. indoor smoking and sampling are banned unless the person has purchased the item at the time they are smoking it. As of last December. Burnsville has the same ordinance. Staff Writer Shannon Prather also contributed to this report. Erin Adler • 952-746-3283 ©2014 Star Tribune http:llwww.startr ibune.com Aocallsouth/276784991.htm I 212