Little hope left for hookah bars
A proposed exemption of hookah bars from the new statewide smoking ban has collapsed.
State Rep. Cullie Tarleton, a Watauga County Democrat, had been pushing a bill to allow hookah bars to stay in business after North Carolina’s smoking ban for restaurants and bars goes into effect in January.
But Tarleton says he has withdrawn the bill at the request of owners of hookah bars, who complained that amendments to the bill would have put new, unfair restrictions on them.
“That would have just been a slow death as opposed to a quick, clean death,” said Adam Bliss, the owner of Hookah Bliss in Chapel Hill. “We’d rather go out clean than be bled to death.”
A hookah is a pipe used to smoke flavored tobacco. The pipe contains a long tube that draws the smoke through a bowl of water in order to cool it. Hookah smoking is popular among young adults, and North Carolina has about 20 hookah bars or lounges, mainly in college towns.
Without a legal exemption, hookah bars will have to either stop allowing hookah smoking, or stop serving all food and beverages. As a practical matter, either of those actions would put them out of business, some hookah bar owners say.
The problem stems from the smoking ban that was passed by the legislature in May. The ban, which will take effect Jan. 2, outlaws smoking in indoor areas of nearly all bars and restaurants.
The law allows a few exemptions. Cigar bars, country clubs and nonprofit fraternal organizations such as Elks lodges may continue to allow smoking. But no such exemption was granted for hookah bars.
Bliss sees that as unfair and inconsistent.
“They have exempted every place that affluent, older folks like to go,” he said.
When the issue came up last week in a legislative committee, anti-smoking advocates urged legislators not to grant an exemption for hookah bars. They said hookah smoking may lead young people to take up regular smoking. And they said hookah smoking is just as unhealthy as smoking cigarettes.
Hookah supporters dispute both of those points. Hookahs are generally used very differently from cigarettes, said Ameen David, the owner of Mooney’s Mediterranean Cafe in downtown Winston-Salem.
“It’s a social thing more than anything else,” David said. “You’ll have two to five to even more people sharing a hookah at one time over the course of 30 or 60 minutes. They’re just sitting back and enjoying the evening.”
