France’s Smoking Ban Chokes its Hookah Bars

Travel Blog  •  Joanna Kakissis  •  05.01.08 | 12:08 PM ET

imageThe president of the Hookah Professionals’ Union—yes, there is such a thing—told the International Herald Tribune that about a third of France’s 800 hookah bars have closed since a ban on indoor smoking took effect Jan. 2.
 

The bars began appearing about a decade ago and quickly became popular among immigrants from Islamic countries and hipster students.

Now, smokers are crammed into a 380-square-foot space, apparently an untenable prospect, even with tasty mint tea and baklava. Some hookah bar owners are breaking the law and giving customers water pipes to smoke, even if it means facing a fine of $215.

“We have no choice,” union president Badri Helou said. “If we don’t offer what our customers used to come for, our companies will go bankrupt.”

Photo by Melle Oh via Flickr (Creative Commons).

Tags: Europe, France, Paris

Joanna Kakissis's writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Boston Globe and The Washington Post, among other publications. A contributor to the World Hum blog, she's currently a Ted Scripps fellow in environmental journalism at the University of Colorado in Boulder.


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