Does Smoking Ban Extend to Hookah Bars? The Law Is Hazy
While the city's March 8 smoking ban makes it clear that smoking in outdoor dining areas is illegal, opinions differ about the use of hookahs.
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Every day Victor Shneir of Encino goes to a local hookah bar to smoke the fruit-flavored tobacco and chill out with his friends.
The 20-year-old enjoys puffing on a water pipe filled with lemon-peach tobacco, even though he has one at home.
“It’s a social thing,” Shneir said. “It’s something to do during the day.”
His friend, Roman Olshanetskiy, 21, also has hookahs at his Tarzana home, but chooses to go out to smoke because his parents say he makes a mess at home. And, it’s an opportunity to meet girls, Olshanetskiy said.
Hookahs—tall, metal pipes passed around a group of people—are filled with tobacco laced with a variety of fruits such as apple, cherry and watermelon. The Middle Eastern tradition has become popular in Encino, where there is a large population of Persians and Israelis.
A recently enacted ordinance, which bans smoking in outdoor dining areas, will spell the end of smoky outdoor patios in Los Angeles in about a month. But the law, which took effect March 8, is not clear if it will also affect hookah bars.
Los Angeles City Councilmen Tom LaBonge and Greig Smith introduced the ordinance to protect employees and passers-by from second-hand smoke at restaurants with outdoor patios. It mandates a $250 fine for smokers, but does not apply to bars or nightclubs that require patrons to be over 18.
"Families with children should be able to enjoy outdoor dining without having to breathe in someone else’s second-hand smoke," Smith said in a statement. "This is about a partnership with diners and their customers, so that together we can achieve what is really a culture change."
Depending on who is interpreting the ordinance, hookah bars and lounges might be operating under the radar or in a gray area of the law.
The owner of a popular Encino hookah bar says his business is exempt, while another isn’t sure. Moshe Bebyan, owner of The Bellagio, a hookah restaurant on Ventura Boulevard in Encino, said he’s waiting for a notice from the city telling him if his business will be subject to the new ordinance.
A legal analyst for LaBonge said it is unclear if local hookah bars, like The Bellagio, are exempt because they serve food. But with a small city staff beleaguered with recent budget cuts, it may be nearly impossible to enforce the new ban anyway.
The ordinance (see attached) defines smoking to include, "the carrying or holding of a lighted pipe, cigar or cigarette of any kind, or any other lighted smoking equipment or the lighting or emitting or exhaling the smoke of a pipe, cigar or cigarette of any kind."
“Hookah smoking on the outdoor patios of restaurants would be treated the same way as cigarette or cigar smoking under that definition,” said Robert Berger, project direct of Project TRUST, a tobacco control and prevention program of the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health.
Misconceptions, however, continue to swirl in local communities over whether the health effects of smoking tobacco through a hookah are less harmful than smoking cigarettes.
A typical modern hookah has a head, a metal body, a water bowl and a flexible hose with a mouthpiece. Some think because the smoke isn’t inhaled, it’s less harmful than smoking a cigarette.
But health officials disagree. They say it is not a safe alternative and should be subjected to the same regulations as cigarette and other tobacco products.
While water does absorb some of the nicotine, water pipe smokers can be exposed to a sufficient amount of it to cause an addiction, according to the World Health Organization. And, hookah smokers are at risk for the same kinds of diseases caused by cigarette smoking, including oral, lung, stomach, esophagal cancers, reduced lung function and decreased fertility, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
A typical hourlong hookah smoking session involves inhaling 100 to 200 times the volume of smoke inhaled from a single cigarette, according to the CDC. Due to the frequency of puffing, depth of inhalation and length of the smoking session, hookah smokers may absorb higher concentrations of the toxins found in cigarette smoke, experts said.
It is unclear what will happen to hookah bars as the city's smoking laws progress. But, in Encino, those who run hookah bars and their patrons say they hope to continue bringing a taste of their native culture to the Valley.
Jaime Diaz
10:53 am on Monday, January 31, 2011
These definitions of smoking and smoking paraphernalia are loosey goosey and open to interpretation. Very interesting article. I'll be eager to learn more if they end up changing the language or decide to give exemptions.
Just Me
1:14 pm on Monday, January 31, 2011
Smoking a hookah is not safer than any other pipe. We agree to live under rule of law and hookah should not be exempt. Second hand smoke is real. - Also, why glorify the negative aspect of any culture. Hookah is not cool. Smoking of any kind is not cool. It should not be condoned.
William Brady
7:34 pm on Monday, January 31, 2011
I woud like to modify this statement, We live under the roule of mostly stupid laws that are often made just so the author can justify the benefits they receive Or , because someone with enough influence $$$ wants it so. There is absolutely no common sense in many of our laws. As for smoking, are these council people aware of how toxic car exhaust emissions are or the sulphuric acid produced by most vehicle batteries. I would like to see proof that ANYONE has died from second hand smoke. I can give many examples of people where one spouse has smoked for years and the other has not suffered any ill effects. City council people would do more to save lives by fixing our streets and fitting street signs that can be seen in the dark> A NON SMOKER, DRIVER, in Encino
jeanie
2:15 pm on Monday, January 31, 2011
TO BE A SMOKER IS TO BE A CRIMINAL...they are looked upon as the most evil people int the world. Whatever happened? Non smokers are often rude and truly hypocritical in their disdain for smokers. Most smokers will do what is necessary when asked to move politely but that look of disdain is so superficial, rude and ridiculous. It's absolutely unfair to be treated that way and frankly, I guarantee you like all the other scares it will turn out that smoking fights cancer. That is what I am hoping for. Whatever happened to freedom of the individual, it just makes me so mad. Smokers for the most part have always respected others don't we deserve the same courteosy and respect. Enough is enough....I never smoke around non smokers but I deserve a place too!
Bob Kirk
2:34 pm on Tuesday, June 21, 2011
Try sitting next to the goon @ the Woodland Hills Coffee Bean on Ventura Blvd., he would nt buy coffee, yet schmooze with his friends & puff away like a chimney & when you asked him to out it out huff & puff & say no...But NOW, ahhh the workers love to have him put out his stinker...I don;t smoke & love the smell of the 1st exhaust puff, but after that yeech & always yeech if I am eating....if you want to smoke do it @ home or in your car w/the windows rolled up...
CarolT
10:41 am on Wednesday, February 2, 2011
The anti-smokers commit flagrant scientific fraud by ignoring more than 50 studies which show that human papillomaviruses cause at least 1/4 of non-small cell lung cancers. Smokers and passive smokers are more likely to have been exposed to this virus for socioeconomic reasons. And the anti-smokers' studies are all based on lifestyle questionnaires, so they're cynically DESIGNED to blame tobacco for all those extra lung cancers that are really caused by HPV. And they commit the same type of fraud with every disease they blame on tobacco.
http://www.smokershistory.com/hpvlungc.htm
And, all their so-called "independent" reports were ring-led by the same guy, Jonathan M. Samet, including the Surgeon General Reports, the EPA report, the IARC report, and the ASHRAE report, and he's now the chairman of the FDA Committee on Tobacco. He and his politically privileged clique exclude all the REAL scientists from their echo chamber. That's how they make their reports "unanimous!"
http://www.smokershistory.com/SGlies.html
For the government to commit fraud to deprive us of our liberties is automatically a violation of our Constitutional rights to the equal protection of the laws, just as much as if it purposely threw innocent people in prison. And for the government to spread lies about phony smoking dangers is terrorism, no different from calling in phony bomb threats.
William Brady
6:39 pm on Wednesday, February 2, 2011
Well said Carol T, there's nothing like facts to get in the way of rumour!
Scott Rhodes
12:02 pm on Tuesday, June 21, 2011
The arguments given by smoking advocates here show flawed reasoning. The liberty of smokers is not being infringed upon. They are still welcome to smoke as much as they want to. In exercising their liberty however, they are not allowed to infringe on the liberty of others. That is the basis for most of our laws, and it is what the smoking ban is about. For instance, you're allowed to play your radio anytime you want with any music you want, except when it becomes loud enough to annoy a neighbor.
As to comparing the health effects of tobacco smoke to car emissions, the poster overlooks that there are laws governing car emissions. If his point is that car emissions have not been banned, that's because we still need to drive, but a smoker does not NEED to smoke his cigarette right next to me while I'm trying to taste the food I paid for as I eat on the restaurant's outside patio. Preventing him from smoking in that exact spot neither hurts his livelihood, nor prevents him from smoking elsewhere. The comparison to car emissions is spurious.
And the poster who suggests that the link between smoking and lung cancer and other diseases is fake, that person is clearly one of the paid shills of the tobacco industry who are hired to post on threads like this one all over the internet. Not only is link well documented, but there's no motive for the government to make one up as he/she claims. The government would make more money by cooperating with the tobacco industry as it used to.
Bob Kirk
2:56 pm on Tuesday, June 21, 2011
There is nothing illegal if its Medical Marijuana............but find the klub that's the tuff part kids!
moe jerrar
5:09 pm on Saturday, September 3, 2011
I find it totally unfaif for the law to grant licenses and permits to thousands of businesses in this country and then decide to shut them down because they just found out smoking is bad for you. HELLOOO, i think this statement was proven when phillip and morris invented tobacco smoke. So it's ok to get the public addicted to smoking and now decide to fine them for smoking. how lame. is marijuana good for you? or don't you think we should first consider banning alcohol before smoking. we have thousands of people dying due to drunk drivers and many others got hurt also millions addicted and lost their lives besides the ones who got serious internal diseases caused by drinking alcohol. how is that OK with the people of the USA? I believe this is a free country and you can do what you want as long as you don't hurt others. It's ok to smoke in an enclosed designated areas like smoke lounges, your house, or car. as long as smokers are conciderate to others and ban smoking around non-smokers and children. how hard is that. BY FREE AMERICAN