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Worksession Item Charles L. LeFevere • Kennedy . 470 US Bank Plaza �✓ 200 South Sixth Street Minneapolis MN 55402 - (612)337-9215 telephone Graven.v en (612)337-9310 fax �J V clefevere@kennedy-graven.coin http://www.kennedy-graven.com CHARTERED MEMORANDUM Date: July 5, 2012 To: New Brighton Mayor and City Council From: Charles LeFevere Re: Tobacco Regulation Early this year, the City's planning staff received inquiries asking whether hookah lounges were permitted in New Brighton. A hookah is a water pipe used to smoke special types of strong tobacco. A hookah lounge is a place where people go to smoke such tobacco with flavorings and to socialize. Hookah lounges are allowed to exist because of an exemption, or loophole, in the Minnesota Clean Indoor Air Act, Minnesota Statutes, Section 144.414, subd. 1 prohibits smoking in public places and places of employment. However, there is an exception allowing "the lighting of tobacco in a tobacco products shop". If a place of business qualifies under law as a "tobacco product shop" (basically a non-liquor establishment that receives over 90% of its revenues from tobacco and related products), the shop can permit customers to light tobacco "for the specific purpose of sampling tobacco products". There is no definition of"sampling" in the statute, so under state law, police and prosecutors have no means of preventing smoking under the Clean Indoor Air Act if patrons go to a tobacco products shop to socialize and smoke for long periods of time. However, cities are authorized to impose stricter limits to protect people from second hand smoke. An increasing number of cities have adopted ordinances to close the "sampling" loophole. New Brighton could extend the Clean Air Act to smoking shops by adoption of an ordinance that prohibits sampling completely (i.e. prohibits all lighting of tobacco, without making an exception for sampling). A draft ordinance that would accomplish this is attached.