Murray » Nathan Porter sucks in a mixture of tobacco, molasses and strawberries through a water pipe and into his lungs. The owner of the Huka Bar & Grill exhales and the smoke smells faintly of fruit, then disappears.

"We can get all these lit up," he gestures to the dozens of hookah pipes sitting at each table in the large room, "but you're not going to see this cloud of smoke."

It's his 5-year-old business that is now up in the air.

More than a year after the state banned smoking in bars, public health officials now say hookah clubs violate the law's intent.

Leaders of the state's 12 local health departments want legislators to clarify whether they intended to include tobacco smoked through water pipes, along with cigarettes and cigars, when they amended the state's indoor air act to protect people from second-hand smoke.

"Health officers believe that hookah smoking likely poses a second-hand smoke risk, as does regular tobacco smoking," says Gary Edwards, executive director of the Salt Lake Valley Health Department. "And if that's the case, then we believe that it should fall under the same requirements that regular tobacco smoking does."

Effective in January 2009, the state banned smoking in bars and clubs. The law defines smoking as "any lighted tobacco product in any form."

Porter maintains his business doesn't violate the law. The mixture of tobacco and flavorings, called shisha, is not taxed by the state as tobacco is, he said. Nor is it lit.

Instead, it sits on a screen below pieces of heated charcoal. A hose is attached to the lower body of the pipe, filled with water. As a smoker inhales through the hose, heated air is drawn down over the tobacco.

"I wasn't looking for a loophole," Porter explains of his reason for opening the bar. "I was looking for a niche."

He and his family opened the bar in 2005, before the smoking ban was passed. Porter said he met with the Salt Lake Valley Health Department last year, and the department decided the club didn't flout the law.

Health officials are raising concerns now due to questions from the public and because of the growing interest in hookah bars. They appear to appeal to young adults, especially near colleges and universities.

An applicant recently asked to open a hookah bar in Provo, prompting the Utah County Board of Health this week to draft a resolution declaring them illegal. Health officials raised fears that hookahs and their flavored tobaccos, which range from apple-cinnamon to chocolate, will appeal to teens and young adults, and get them hooked on nicotine.

"We think this should be [regulated] under the Indoor Clean Air Act," said Joseph Miner, Utah County's health department director.

The unanimous decision to draft the resolution ignores advice from the Utah County Attorney's Office, which said Utah County shouldn't regulate the bars if Salt Lake County has chosen not to.

But Utah County Commissioner Gary J. Anderson, also a member of health board, said he doesn't see any difference between cigarettes and hookahs.

"If someone came in and said they wanted to open a cigarette bar, would we let them proceed?" he asked rhetorically.

Rep. Paul Ray, R-Clearfield, who advocates for anti-smoking legislation, said he wants to know more about hookah bars, based on a dozen calls he has received in the past two weeks from people wondering about them.

As chairman of the interim Health and Human Services committee, he said the topic will likely be on the agenda next month. Also, attorneys for the state health department are exploring whether it can make a rule to include water pipes in the definition of smoking.

"My question is, how is the atmosphere?" Ray said. "What's the air like in the building?"

Porter welcomes the chance to explain his business, since adding hookahs to the law would put him out of business. If changes are made, he hopes they would apply to new applicants only.

He said his was the first hookah bar to open in the state -- and it is believed to be the only one now open. It has never allowed indoor cigarette smoking.

"I don't smoke. I don't like to be around it," said Porter, adding that most of his relatives who run the bar with him are members of the LDS Church, which advises its members to not smoke.

The American Lung Association and the World Health Organization have raised concerns about the health effects of water pipe smoking on the smoker, saying it carries similar risks of addiction, cancers and heart disease as cigarette smoking.

There is little evidence about the second-hand smoke risks from hookahs. Unlike cigarettes, which emit unfiltered smoke from the tip, the only smoke produced by hookahs is exhaled by the smoker, Porter notes, adding that the hookah smoke is filtered by the smoker's lungs and the water in the pipe.

"Not all the smoke is the same," he added, pointing out that cigarettes include hundreds of ingredients, compared to four in shisha.

But other recent studies on hookahs and second-hand smoke say a one-hour water pipe session generates ambient carcinogens and toxicants equal to two to 10 cigarette smokers.

"There is therefore good reason to include water pipe tobacco smoking in public smoking bans," according to the authors of an article published in the international journal Atmospheric Environment this year.

Porter's customers disagree, motioning to the smoke-free air.

"If you don't want to smoke, don't come here," said Dianne Allen, who was visiting from Washington state. "It's like, if you don't want to exercise, don't go to a gym."