smoke like an Egyptian (Hookah bars struggle in Texas)

The Economist ^ | 25-sept-05 | The Economist

[voletti]

AT THE Hookup Lounge near the University of Texas (UT), 20-somethings loll about, some encased in plumes of smoke. But they are not snogging, yet. In true academic spirit, they are learning the ways of another culture—and passing around a hookah pipe. “I normally smoke cigarettes, but it's kind of nice not having to get up and go outside,” says Jon Faviell, who is trying to get into graduate school at UT. He is sharing a mint pipe with a friend.

Alas for Austinites, there are now fewer hookah places to puff. At the beginning of this month, a city-wide smoking ban went into effect. Smoking indoors in public areas is now mostly restricted to the likes of nursing homes and bingo halls. The Hookup Lounge (named for its, ahem, wireless access) survives because it is classed as a retail tobacco store (the bulk of its sales being derived from tobacco products). But one downtown Austin bar, the Red Fez, no longer offers hookah. Another, One2One, is opening up new patio space to keep patrons puffing; on the night before the ban it sportingly offered free hookahs until midnight.

Hookahs used to be associated with marijuana, opium dens and progressive rock (or that's what we vaguely remember). But legitimate hookah bars started appearing in California in the late 1990s, and, despite the anti-smoking surge, they are booming, especially in college towns.

Brennan Appel of SouthSmoke.com, a hookah-merchandise supplier, reckons that there are now several thousand bars and lounges (nobody in the hookah trade is that great on specific numbers). Jonathan Fair of One2One theorises that Lewis Carroll's “Alice in Wonderland”, in which a shrunken Alice meets a water-pipe-smoking caterpillar, has had something to do with it.

[voletti]

Dunno about the rest of you, but as an ex-smoker myself, I can testify to the kind of appeal this might have...

[billybudd]

Looks a bit cumbersome.

[BunnySlippers]

I drove down to my post office yesterday at 8am ... my local hookah bar was already jamming!

[billorites]

We had something like that in college.

[Paleo Conservative]

Are you sure that's tobacco he's smoking?

[SShultz460]

yea but we never smoked tobacco with it

[BunnySlippers]

Actually it isn't terribly cumbersome at all. The hookah bars are filled with big overstuffed plush chairs with the hookah on a table. The only thing you have to deal with is a tube.

[Vision]

If this is your idea of a recreational activity, you've got issues

[Starwolf]

At the risk of defending smoking...

Hookahs are shared between fiends. Its a communal activity, not unlike eating from the same plate/table in a middle eastern resturant. Provides a bit of bonding.

[Hank Rearden]

The only part of the article I found really interesting was at the end, where it talks about how clever people are evading Big Stupid Government (in both cases under Republican governors):

In Manhattan, plenty of places get classified as tobacco bars and so avoid New York's 2003 ban. Joseph Melamed of the Gypsy Café in Westwood, California, has another strategy. He says that California's smoking ban was enacted to protect employees, not patrons (who can choose to boycott the bar). So he has taken advantage of an exemption for owner-operated bars with no employees, and made his employees part-owners.

American ingenuity isn't dead just yet.

[freepatriot32]

ping

[freepatriot32]

Libertarian ping.To be added or removed from my ping list freepmail me or post a message here

[lastchance]

I am a non smoker- I hate the smell of cigarette smoke. While on vacation my husband and I had lunch at a combination cafe' hookah bar. The odors did not bother me at all and there sure was no smoke haze. But the stuff is expensive.

[BunnySlippers]

Well, I only drive by my hookah bar. I quit smoking more than 15 years ago and don't miss it. And I don't like cigarette smoke.

[billybudd]

Hookahs are shared between fiends.

So it's a very fiendish activity.

[varyouga]

these fellas sure like to puff:

[Vision]

Hookahs are shared between fiends. Its a communal activity, not unlike eating from the same plate/table in a middle eastern restaurant. Provides a bit of bonding.

Eating is a necessity of life. Getting high on drugs is not

[Extremely Extreme Extremist]

Getting high on drugs is not

Not your concern. Let Darwin worry about them.

[Alter Kaker]

Eating is a necessity of life. Getting high on drugs is not

While tobacco is a drug, I'm not sure that the buzz you get smoking it, even through tubes and water, could reasonably be called a "high." Out of curiosity, do you eat with another person, or always alone? Eating is a necessity, but for most of us, it is also a social activity. Hence taking someone out to dinner, which I can assure you isn't just about injesting the requisite calories, minerals and vitamins to sustsain life.

[Vision]

While tobacco is a drug, I'm not sure that the buzz you get smoking it, even through tubes and water, could reasonably be called a "high." Out of curiosity, do you eat with another person, or always alone? Eating is a necessity, but for most of us, it is also a social activity. Hence taking someone out to dinner, which I can assure you isn't just about injesting the requisite calories, minerals and vitamins to sustsain life.

You druggies are all the same, always trying to intellectualize your beliefs. The hookah was not designed and is not primarily used to smoke tobacco. And try spell checking your posts if you can get your mouth off the bong for a few seconds- it's only a few clicks