The Village of Williston Park is joining several other North Shore villages in an effort to stamp out newly popular kinds of smoking.
The Village Board will hold a public hearing May 16 on a law that would ban businesses that allow customers to smoke on the premises, such as hookah bars.
“It’s an unhealthy situation,” Mayor Paul Ehrbar said. “People shouldn’t be exposed to this kind of event, and if you’re allowed to smoke inside of a store and there’s smoke in the store, that’s not a healthy situation.”
The law would also prohibit businesses that allow the smoking of electronic cigarettes, or vaping; but it does not explicitly prohibit selling e-cigarettes or other “smoking-related products.”
Williston Park modeled its law on the Village of Great Neck’s 2014 ban on hookah bars, where customers smoke a kind of tobacco called shisha through a water pipe, after reviewing similar provisions in other villages, Ehrbar said.
The Village of Great Neck Plaza passed a similar ban in February 2015.
Ehrbar said the law is “an extension” of a statewide ban on smoking in all indoor businesses. That law exempts tobacco shops and cigar bars, but says local governments can regulate smoking more strictly.
The Village of New Hyde Park is scheduled to vote on a law this month that would define hookah bars and vape shops as adult uses in the village code, relegating them to industrial zones and imposing distance restrictions.
The Village of Mineola similarly regulates hookah bars, and will hold a public hearing Wednesday to do the same for vape shops.
Both villages’ mayors have said they do not want to ban the businesses, but rather restrict them to appropriate locations.
Williston Park, though, has a very small industrial zone that consists of one office building, Ehrbar said.
The proposed laws are part of increasing efforts to regulate hookah and electronic cigarettes, a growing industry in the U.S.
The federal Food and Drug Administration announced last Thursday that it would regulate hookah pipes, shisha and e-cigarettes in the same way it regulates tobacco cigarettes.
When they go into effect in three months, the rules will prevent retailers from selling the products to minors, create stricter manufacturing standards and require public health warnings on packages and advertisements, an FDA news release says.
However, a study the United Kingdom’s Royal College of Physicians published the week before said e-cigarettes are overall less dangerous than tobacco cigarettes and are an effective way to quit smoking tobacco.
The study recommended that regulators “take a balanced approach in seeking to ensure product safety, enable and encourage smokers to use the product instead of tobacco, and detect and prevent effects that counter the overall goals of tobacco control policy.”
While he acknowledged the chemicals in e-cigarettes may be less harmful than tobacco, Ehrbar said, “My question would be, though, do we know what’s in the chemicals that are being smoked? And that’s, I think, the issue with the federal government.”
While he understands efforts to regulate smoking, Mike, an employee at Hillside Cigar Shop in Williston Park, said he thinks e-cigarettes are less disruptive and should not be lumped in with regular tobacco.
“I really don’t think there’s any need for restrictions,” said Mike, who declined to give his last name. “It’s not abusing anybody. It’s not like cigarettes.”
Ehrbar said he thinks there should be a “lengthy discussion” at the hearing on the proposed law at 8 p.m. March 16 in Village Hall, located at 494 Willis Ave.
