If you thought New York City's ban on smoking cigarettes in public was harsh, check out the City Council's latest target. Hookahs are now on one councilman's hit list. Practiced originally in the Middle East, hookah is an instrument used for smoking herbal shisha and sometimes tobacco. It is widely practiced in Arabic culture and has become popular in the United States where many restaurants and bars feature it. Recently, it has caught on among students.
But Vincent Gentile, a councilman from Brooklyn, would like to put hookah smoking to an end. Last month, he introduced legislation to prevent the creation of new hookah bars in New York City.
He cites health as his main concern. "There are some people going there thinking that as long as it's not tobacco, that it's not harmful," Gentile told the Daily News. "It's been established that it is harmful." Experts agree that hookah smoking can carry the same risks as smoking tobacco-and maybe more since sessions last longer than a regularly smoked cigarette. Gentile adds that some bars have been caught adding tobacco to their hookah mixes.
What do City College students think of the proposed ban? Most don't like it. "Many people consider hookah to be a cultural exchange," says, Erica De La Cruz, a 20-year-old junior who is majoring in English. "This seems like just another ploy to sidetrack the public from real problems going on around us. This ban can also be seen as an infringement on the people's rights to make independent decisions."
Adds senior Freddy Torres, Jr.: "I've smoked hookah before and find nothing wrong with it. It's not something I continuously practice as well as many people that have tried it."
English major Jasmin Figueroa says she has mixed feelings. "I think this is an issue all of a sudden because of hookah's rising popularity, especially in light of the crackdown on regular cigarette smoking," says Figueroa, 20. Although I am not in complete favor of the ban, I'd be all for restricting the opening of something that could potentially cause so much damage to people."
CCNY alum José Saavedra is also on the fence. "If people want to smoke that crap, then they can. Just don't do it around me," he says. "But if it is banned, the people who smoke it may take it other places that could potentially endanger others more than if it was contained in its old spot, a restaurant or bar."
If this ban goes into effect, new hookah restaurants and bars would be illegal by the year 2012. Rising junior, Sarah Miller, 19, a psych major, doubts the anti-hookah law will do any good.
"Getting rid of the creation of new hookah bars will have no affect on New York becoming a smoke-free state," she says. "Putting a ban on something as culturally diverse as hookah will probably deteriorate our already dying economy. After all, I'm sure these hookah bars pay the state taxes which we all know adds to the betterment of our economy."
--By Courtney James
--This article first appeared in CCNY's newspaper, The Campus (see link)
