Following an undercover investigation, the city’s Health Department announced it found 13 hookah bars in the city, including four in Queens, selling a pipe mix that included tobacco for their patrons to smoke on premises, violating the city’s Smoke-Free Air Act.
At hookah bars patrons smoke a substance called shisha, composed of herbs, molasses and, in some cases, tobacco. Serving shisha with tobacco violates the city’s 2002 law that prohibits smoking tobacco in a workplace, including restaurants and bars.
“These 13 hookah bars are knowingly flouting the law by serving tobacco-based shisha,” Health Commissioner Dr. Mary Bassett said. “Tobacco smoke is dangerous for the health of the smoker, patrons and those who work in these establishments.”
On Nov. 14, Health Department inspectors, working together with New York University students, went to the 13 bars and “discretely” took samples of the shisha being served. After being sent to be tested, it was found that all the shisha samples tested positive for nicotine.
The bars in Queens included two in Astoria: Fayrooz Hookah Lounge and Bar on 28-08 Steinway St. and Melody Lounge on 25-95 Steinway St.; and two in Fresh Meadows, just blocks from St. John’s University: Layla Hookah Lounge on 181-34 Union Turnpike and Cloud 9 on 179-22 Union Turnpike.
The Health Department is now beginning to take measures to revoke the permits of all 13 bars and restaurants.
11 comments:
Now go after all of the illegal massage parlors all over Queens.
VIBRANT DIVERSITY!!!
These places are a real menace to the people that live in the buildings, just like bars that go till 4 in the morning, sidewalk grabbing 'cafes', rowdy crowds and speakers that blast once quiet neighborhoods in Astoria, but the bar and restaurant owners are big donors and if it means that long term quality of life people are driven out in favor of 4 transient beer guzzling hipsters per apartment that are running up daddy's tab till will into their 40s whose problem is that?
Certainly not the politicians that benignly encourage this.
There are some factual errors in the quoted article. "Shisha" is one of the Arabic words for "hookah." It is not the substance you smoke in the device (it is from the Turkish word "shish" which means "glass"). Hookah is not an Arabic word. In Egyptian Arabic you would say: "Let's go smoke a shisha." All over the Arab World, the substance that one normally smokes in a shisha is called "muassal," which literally means "sweetened." The implied noun is "tobacco." Muassal without tobacco in it is unheard of. If hookah bars in New York are truly serving hookah with a tobacco-free muassal, they'd be the only place in the world to do so..
Who gives a shit?
GO after the illegals, illegal apartmemnts, illegal curb cuts, paved over front yeards. There are so many more import quality-of-life violations in NYC.
If you're going to a hookah lounge you're clearly not obsessed with being in a smoke-free environment!
What about the "weed". Easy to sneak some of that in there too.
Hookah is called "narghile" in the Middle East. Originally, they used opium or hashish. The name "Shisa" may have been derived from the word "hashish"
What a surprise.
This is a venue where shouting "I can't breathe. I can't breathe" might correspond to reality.
These places advertise as "Hookah" Lounges...does anyone really expect anything other than tobacco filled smoke; the fault lies with the city for failing to catch what these businesses were selling prior to giving them licenses to operate--that's like going to an establishment openly advertised as a gentlemen's club and expecting to find sweaters for sale ...really?
this will be hard to enforce if the defendants bring up establishments that allow cigar smoking indoors.
there are 3 in manhattan
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