After three years of ban, it seems Hookah Bars are back

Ahmedabad, 9 December 2014

It seems Hookah Bars are back.

Three years ago civic bodies and police in Mumbai, Ahmedabad and Chennai prohibited hookah bars. Such actions were backed by three high courts, but on Monday the Supreme Court has lifted the ban on sale and use of hookahs in hotels, restaurants and airport.

A bench of Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justice Rohinton Nariman, allowing appeals against the judgments of the Bombay, Gujarat and Madras high courts observed following points:

-The definition of smoking under the Cigarettes Act included smoking tobacco in any form with the help of a pipe, wrapper, or any other instrument, which would include a hookah and the expression, “no other service shall be allowed”, referred to services other than hookahs.

-The use of hookahs could be permitted in smoking zones.

-The law, as it stands, prohibits smoking in all public places across the nation except in specially designated smoking rooms in hotels, restaurants and airports.

-The law permitted the sale of cigarettes and tobacco to adults in areas outside a 100-yard radius of educational institutions.

-The law, as it stands, prohibits smoking in all public places across the nation except in specially designated smoking rooms in hotels, restaurants and airports.

-Ashtrays, matches, lighters and other things designed to facilitate smoking are not to be provided in public places. But a bar on Hookah smoking in smoking areas is outside the purview of the Cigarettes and other Tobacco Products (Prohibition of Advertisement and Regulation of Trade and Commerce, Production, Supply & Distribution) Act, 2003, or the Cigarettes Act.

In Gujarat, the High Court had upheld an order from the Ahmedabad police chief, prohibiting standalone hookah bars and also those in hotels and restaurants. The SC observed that the “Gujarat HC had referred to the evil effects of smoking … and concluded that the police power to regulate included the power to prohibit”. Justice Nariman, who penned the SC ruling, held that the Gujarat HC was wrong on all counts.

A note:

Several crime incidents related to youths were found associated with Hookah bars in Ahmedabad and elsewhere in Gujarat, following which the police had cracked down and forced shut down of hookah bars across the state. Public opinion too largely was in favor of police’s decision to cancel licenses of hookah bar premises. Hookah bars were considered nuisance largely in public, barring a few youths using it regularly. Now after the judgement of Supreme Court, it has to be seen how police and health department continue to control hookah bars.