Memo- Amendments to the Tobacco OrdinanceDepartment of Administration
Memorandum
To:
City Council
From:
Jim Genellie
Date:
October 6, 2011
Subiect:
Amendments to the Tobacco Ordinance.
The City of Hopkins licenses the sale of tobacco.
There is an exception to the Minnesota Clean Indoor Air Act
Subd. 4. Tobacco products shop. Sections 144.414 to 144.417 do not prohibit the
lighting of tobacco in a tobacco products shop by a customer or potential customer for
the specific purpose of sampling tobacco products. For the purposes of this
subdivision, a tobacco products shop is a retail establishment with an entrance door
opening directly to the outside that derives more than 90 percent of its gross revenue
from the sale of loose tobacco, plants, or herbs and cigars, cigarettes, pipes, and
other smoking devices for burning tobacco and related smoking accessories and in
which the sale of other products is merely incidental. "Tobacco products shop" does
not include a tobacco department or section of any individual business establishment
with any type of liquor, food, or restaurant license.
Some establishments in other cities have used this exemption to establish smoking
bars or lounges. The intent of the Hopkins ordinance was to allow certain
establishments to sell tobacco not to permit the establishment of smoking lounges.
If, in the future, someone wishes to establish such a business, the City Council can
decide whether to allow it.
Staff is recommending that the Council consider the following amendment to the
City's tobacco ordinance:
Smoking Prohibited. It shall be unlawful for the lighting, inhaling, exhaling or combination thereof
of tobacco, tobacco products or tobacco related devices by any person in any retail establishment.
\Worksession Memo - Tobacco.doc