City committee backs call to regulate shisha after motion to ban hookah lounges in Winnipeg
City wants province to look at regulating herbal shisha, smoked in hookah pipes, in legislation
Members of Winnipeg city council backed away from a proposal calling for a ban on hookah lounges in the city, instead passing a motion calling on the provincial government to consider regulating herbal shisha the same way it does products like tobacco and cannabis.
Coun. Evan Duncan (Charleswood-Tuxedo-Westwood) had previously proposed a motion directing city staff to develop a bylaw that would ban hookahs indoors and on patios.
Council laid that motion over last month, in order to gather more information.
On Tuesday, council's executive policy committee amended the motion to instead ask the province to amend the Smoking and Vapour Products Control Act to include shisha.
The current legislation makes no reference to shisha — a herbal product that may or may not contain tobacco, consumed using a water pipe called a hookah — but includes specific exemptions for indoor smoking of tobacco products in establishments like tobacconists and in hotel rooms. It also allows for the use of e-cigarettes in vape shops.
Troy Harwood-Jones, a lawyer representing nine owners of Winnipeg hookah lounges, says the owners come from Middle Eastern and South Asian communities, where smoking shisha is a popular cultural practice.
"Why is this ethnic community being targeted for a ban when differential and better treatment is provided to other people?" Harwood-Jones said to reporters before the vote on Duncan's motion.
"Manitoba doesn't ban hookah, and it allows even tobacco to be conducted and used safely, so the city can't set up a regime which … is different from that," he said.
During the committee meeting, Duncan repeatedly questioned Harwood-Jones about the health risks of smoking shisha.
"Can you tell me perhaps how we can safely consume tobacco or a tobacco-like product?" Duncan asked Harwood-Jones.
The lawyer replied that he is not a health expert, but pointed to the fact that Manitoba law allows exemptions for smoking tobacco in some settings, as long as certain requirements are met, such as proper ventilation and banning minors from the premises.
'Equivalent of 100 cigarettes'
Neil Johnston, president and CEO of the Manitoba Lung Association, supported Duncan's call for a ban.
The World Health Organization estimates that "a one-hour hookah session is equivalent approximately to smoking 100 cigarettes," Johnston told the committee.
Duncan made his original motion 10 months after Daniel McIntyre Coun. Cindy Gilroy raised concerns about the potential danger of high carbon monoxide levels emanating from shisha pipes.
In 2022, the Winnipeg Fire Paramedic Service ordered two hookah lounges temporarily closed after detecting carbon monoxide levels above Manitoba's limit of 25 parts per million over one hour.
A city report found Vancouver, Edmonton, Regina and Toronto do not permit the smoking of hookah pipes at businesses — but made no recommendations to city council about hookah regulations for Winnipeg.
At least two Winnipeg cigar retailers are allowed to operate cigar smoking lounges. There is also at least one private club in Winnipeg with a cigar lounge.
The province could include an exception for hookah lounges in its legislation, Duncan said.
"If they choose to add herbal shisha onto the list and then give an exemption, that's up to them," he told reporters after the vote.
Requests for comment to the provincial government were not returned before deadline.
The motion asking the province to include shisha in the indoor smoking law still needs approval from council, which will vote on Jan. 25.
Essential services
The executive policy committee also passed a motion asking the province to amend the Essential Services Act, after months of delay while city staff and representatives of the Canadian Union of Public Employees Local 500 tried to negotiate an agreement on which workers would remain on the job in the event of a future strike.
Last April, council put a proposal to expand the essential services list on hold, after union members nearly went on strike in fall 2022. No essential services agreement was in place, despite efforts to create one.
On Tuesday, EPC altered the motion. Rather than asking the province to specify which workers would lose the right to strike, it would require legislation saying a negotiated essential services agreement must be in place before union members walk off the job.
CUPE 500 president Gord Delbridge said in an interview it was always the union's intention to negotiate an essential services agreement before a strike.
"So all the work that we've done up to this point is kind of a moot point, because we don't even know what the rules are going to be, what's going to be legislated," Delbridge said.
"And until such time that we do, I guess there's no sense of us meeting anymore."
Mayor Scott Gillingham says the revised motion accomplishes the same goal as the original.
"There are services in the City of Winnipeg that are essential and there are services that must be delivered," he said.
"In my mind, our citizens need assurance that no matter what … the delivery of those services are never in doubt."
That motion also requires a final vote of council.
Currently, only Winnipeg police, paramedics and firefighters are considered essential and do not have the right to strike.
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