Viewpoints

Proposals to Further Restrict Hookah Use Angers Hookah Bar Owner

By Kaanita Iyer
Spectrum Staff

Two years after New York City officials cited13 hookah bars, including seven in the East Village, for selling hookah illegally laced with tobacco, two city council members have proposed further restricting what hookah bars can sell and to whom they may sell it.

The legislation would increase from 18 to 21 the age when a person can legally buy hookah and hookah-related products. Also, it would ban hookah sales in places that sell liquor and food.

Hookah bar owners—including one who insists hookah bars are held to a stricter standard than cigar bars—are not pleased with what’s being proposed.

“I’m a proud American,” hookah bar owner Ali Galuten, 25, said during a 15-minute phone interview with The Spectrum. “But I’m upset with New York City’s treatment of minorities.”

The proposed restrictions would lessen the profits of hookah bars, which, Galuten said, is unfair to the Middle Easterners who own most of the city’s hookah bars.

No one is being discriminated against, city officials said.

“The bill focuses on removing hookah from establishments that have other purposes such as restaurants. We are trying to tackle the problem of kids, specifically teenagers, smoking hookah. It has nothing to do with race or religion,” said Russell Murphy, chief of staff for City Councilman Ydanis A. Rodriguez.

He and City Councilmen Vincent J. Gentile have proposed the new restrictions.

The Galuten family’s 25-year-old hookah bar, Sahara East, was one of the 13 bars New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene investigators cited in January 2015, based on tobacco-laced hookah samples gathered by New York University students. Hookah mixed with tobacco violates the city’s Smoke-Free Air Act, which prohibits “smoking substances containing tobacco in workplaces, including food service establishments.”

Hookah smoking carries lung-cancer and other risks also linked to cigarette smoking, studies have concluded. Among other differences, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “An hour-long hookah smoking session involves 200 puffs, while smoking an average cigarette involves 20 puffs.” Even non-tobacco hookah contains carbon monoxide and other toxins because charcoal heats hookah pipes, researchers have concluded.

A study by NYU Langone Medical Center concluded that use of alternate tobacco products such as hookah increased 123 percent from 2004 to 2014, while cigarette-smoking decreased.

Councilman Gentile calls hookah smoking a “silent epidemic” and, in a Facebook message to constituents, said, “We must protect our young people from a substance they naively believe to be less harmful than cigarettes.”