Monday, March 1, 1999 | 11:25 a.m.
It's everywhere, and it's not always free.
Las Vegas can count itself hip to one more trend: The first oxygen bar has been open less than a month here, and already business is booming.
"We can't keep up," Deanne Lamb, owner of an establishment called breathe ... an oxygen bar, says, adding that they have had a waiting list to belly up to the bar on weekend nights.
Nestled behind Borders Bookshop on the corner of West Sahara Avenue and Decatur Boulevard, breathe expects business to increase as walk-ins become regulars for the $1 per minute (10 minute minimum) oxygen experience.
There are no tubes snaking from behind artsy facades, no masks to pull from the ceiling and no alcohol is served at this bar. Instead, comfortable black leather furniture is casually placed on bright, thick rugs; sheer purple curtains billow from the tall front windows; tubes filled with brightly colored eucalyptus, lemongrass and other herbal water mixtures bubble in their acrylic houses, called infusers, in which oxygen is pumped to lend it flavor; and customers are high on health -- not liquor
"For everybody, the experience is totally different," Lamb says. Two tanning beds and an aesthetician/massage therapist take up three private rooms in the back where you can receive oxygen treatments and a healthy glow.
Patrons sit sipping herbal libations, called "Thinderella," "Satin Sheets," and "Bliss," from ornate cocktail glasses, some giggling after their oxygen sessions.
Breathe in
Angel Fajardo sits quietly at the end of the blue bar.
Clear oxygen tubes, like those used on hospital patients, are hooked over both ears. Just above his upper lip rests a blue nose piece that delivers the eucalyptus-flavored oxygen. The mortgage firm partner had a stressful day at work and stopped in on his way home to "breathe" for the first time.
But it won't be his last visit.
"It's uplifted me," he says, slightly surprised. "You can feel the energy from the whole place. Everybody is really calm and laid-back.
"It gives me the calming break that I need after a long day's work," Fajardo says, sipping a "Heart On" fruit smoothie topped with a curl of whipped cream from a large daiquiri glass. "I feel kind of light-headed."
"Do you get high?" Linda Bailey asks the oxygen, uh, bartender as she suspiciously fingers the plastic tubing sprouting from the infusers. She and friend Gladys Roberts are supposed to be running errands at the shopping center, but stopped in to see what an oxygen bar was all about.
"I saw an ad about (actor) Woody Harrelson having one," Bailey says. "It's a Hollywood thing, right?"
Actually, oxygen bars have become popular all over the world, particularly in Asia, and popped up in Toronto and New York before Harrelson opened his in North Hollywood, Calif.
But Roberts was still skeptical.
"I just think it's a new health thing. Seems like the whole world is on this health kick," she says before ordering a "Red Head" -- a passion fruit, strawberry and protein smoothie.
"I think it's wholesome and healthy," Bailey says, "and it gives you a nice relaxing evening out without engaging in things you don't necessarily want to do."
"It's delicious," Roberts says after her drink arrives, frothy and pink. "When I came in and found out the oxygen happened to be in flavors, I like that. I think one time I'm just going to have to come by and sip on my smoothie and slip on my oxygen."
Lamb and her staff, however, must refrain from saying what the oxygen actually does, according to Federal Drug Administration rules. But Lamb notes: "You should come in with a headache and see what it does for you."
Breathe out
Dr. Robert Shreck, general practitioner at the Family Health Care Center on East Flamingo Road, says short bursts of even 100 percent pure oxygen don't have a long-term effect.
"As soon as you go back out of the bar, you'd be breathing the regular air," Schreck says.
So what makes Breathe's blend of oxygen healthier?
"We have an oxygen generator," Lamb explains, making room for another breather at the bar by connecting a fresh length of clear tubing and blue nose piece to an infuser.
Kevin McFarland, vice president of manufacturing and product development for Breathe, explains that "it's a Pressure Swing Absorption (PSA) oxygen generator."
OK.
"It's a molecular sieve, a small screen that nitrogen can go through but not oxygen," he says.
Uh-huh.
"We then vent off the nitrogen to go outside and pass the oxygen to the client," he says.
But how much of the air going to the client is actual oxygen?
"About 95 to 97 percent," he says.
Although oxygen bars are not regulated by any government agency, they must obtain a business license and pass health department inspections for serving the herbal libations. The FDA has, however, visited stores in Arizona, Georgia and Nevada 11 times, and has yet to disapprove of the operation, McFarland claims.
There is a patent pending for McFarland's PSA oxygen generator, which he is still fine-tuning for mass production to bring the cost down for more stores.
Deep breath, now
Lamb, a resident of Las Vegas for seven years, was working as a dealer at Bally's hotel-casino when she decided to change the direction in her life.
"After being subjected to cigarette smoke over and over and developing respiratory problems and allergies ... I started looking for something (else)," Lamb says.
By chance, while watching a late-night talk show, she caught an appearance by actress Kirstie Alley, who said she used oxygen regularly and claimed it had given her a more youthful appearance.
"It just rang so true to me," Lamb says. "I knew that it would be wonderful."
Although her husband, Shawn, had reservations initially, a home oxygen tank convinced the couple a business venture would be fruitful.
"There's been a ton of people (who) have said, 'It's just a fad, it's going to be in and out,' " Lamb says. "But then they also said that about coffee bars. 'No one is ever going to buy coffee when you can make it in your own kitchen.' "
What's more, she says, the bottled water industry was laughed at when it launched a health-oriented campaign promoting drinking purified water rather than tap.
"You have a choice now, and that's what we are -- a choice to breathe clean air," Lamb says.
She found McFarland in Reno. He was branching out with oxygen bars around the country and in Germany, and needed a helping hand.
"It had gotten to the point where I couldn't keep up with it," McFarland says. But that's not what he expected when he first heard of the budding business.
"Even I scoffed at the idea," McFarland says. But as he became more educated about oxygen bars, which he says have been strong in the Orient for more than 40 years, he saw a need.
"Look at bottled water; it endured the same skepticism," he says. "Now it's a $5.2 billion dollar industry."
The same health awareness that pushed people from tap water toward cleaner bottled water is what he hopes will steer people towards air awareness.
"It's going to be a street-corner industry," McFarland says. "You are going to see that occur as pollution counts continue to rise and oxygen levels fall."
He may be on to something.
And ... exhale
On Feb. 25, the Clark County Health District's air pollution control division recorded a carbon monoxide pollution level of 59. (The "good" range is 0-49; "moderate" 50 to 99; and above 100 is "unhealthful").
"The (Environmental Protection Agency) has classified us as serious non-attainment for PM10 (particulate matter smaller than 10 microns -- one millionth of a meter -- which are too small for the lungs to expel) and carbon monoxide because we exceeded the (pollution) standard (index)," says Monte Symmonds, air quality monitoring technician for the Clark County Health District's air pollution control division.
The bigger health problem, however, is carbon monoxide, Symmonds says. The good news is that over the last 20 years, the number of "unhealthful" days has decreased, peaking in 1985 at 41 days; last year there were a mere two.
Of the 30 air quality monitoring stations scattered throughout the valley, the East Charleston Boulevard station is the only one that repeatedly registers the high levels.
While McFarland and the Lambs are scouting for another local location -- possibly in Green Valley -- for their alternative bar, customers continue streaming in.
Las Vegans Kristie Johnson and Danielle Marrone checked out the bar on the enthusiastic suggestion of a friend.
"I thought it was some kind of scheme to get my money," Johnson says of her first impression. "But it's cool."
"We might have been expecting too much, to feel more physical," Marrone says. "But when I stood up I could kind of feel it."
She'll be back.
"Oh yeah, it's my new hobby. I'm going to get to know every last tube on the bar!"
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