City Shuts Down 13 Hookah Bars, Weighs Ban On Sales

The city is cracking down on hookah sales, and they may be coming for Brooklyn next.

As City Council proposes a bill to limit the sale of hookah supplies in stores, the city’s Health Department has moved to shut down a dozen hookah bars frequented by college students in Manhattan and Queens, after finding that they were illegally serving sheesha containing tobacco.

The New York Daily News reports:

The city’s indoor smoking ban prohibits bars from serving shisha with tobacco — while allowing them to fill their popular water pipes with herbs and molasses.

But samples secretly taken at all 13 bars visited by NYU students working with Health Department investigators in Manhattan and Queens were found in lab tests to contain tobacco.

On the same day, City Council introduced a bill to ban sheesha and pipe sales in stores that don’t derive the majority of their revenue from tobacco, like bodegas and supermarkets. The proposed law, drafted by Councilman Ydanis Rodriguez, expresses concerns that hookahs are becoming increasingly popular with teens, though the smoke contains tar, nicotine, and carbon monoxide. Smoke shops and hookah bars would not be affected by the bill.

In 2013, we reported that Council Leader Vincent Gentile tried to block the expansion of the hookah bar trend, citing research by a 25-year-old graduate student from Bensonhurst which showed that the pipes contain cancer-causing elements and are just as addictive as cigarettes.