The Shisha Lounge on North High Street is a prized smoker’s haven in smoke-free Columbus.
Students gather to smoke flavored tobacco out of Middle-Eastern style water pipes, or smoke cigarettes while sipping coffee and munching on falafel sandwiches.
But this month’s passage of a statewide smoking ban could put the popular hookah bar out of business.
Starting Dec. 7, the only Ohio retailers that can allow smoking are those grossing 80 percent or more of their income from the sale of tobacco products and accessories.
The Shi-Sha Lounge only receives 60 to 65 percent of its revenue from tobacco products, which has part-owner Aaron Johnston worried. The rest of the lounge’s revenue comes from food and coffee sales, he said.
The shop operated without a problem under the Columbus-wide smoking ban that went into effect in 2004. It allowed stores that primarily sold smoking materials to be exempt from the ban, which included Shi-Sha and the three other hookah lounges near campus and in the Short North.
“The Columbus threshold was much more reasonable,” Johnston said.
And the law even seemed to benefit hookah bars, which have been gaining in popularity in recent years.
For the past two years, area hookah bars have been among the few remaining public areas where smokers could congregate indoors.
Shisha has attracted a steady stream of regulars since it opened in 2003, Johnston said.
He said he thinks the new smoking ban has gone too far.
“Instead of having a place that is sort of a nice medium, a nice compromise, where we sold 60 to 75 percent (tobacco products) before, we have to go extreme and sell 80 percent tobacco,” he said.
Supporters of the ban say the reason the threshold is at 80 percent is to ensure only true tobacco retail stores would be exempt.
“We want to make sure we protect as many workers and as many customers from second-hand smoke as possible,” said Tracy Sabetta of Smoke Free Ohio, a coalition of mostly health organizations that backed the statewide smoking ban.
But Johnston said the new constitutional amendment, which was Issue 5 on the Nov. 7 ballot, does more than that.
“Everybody that comes in here knows about the dangers of second-hand smoke. They’re not expecting to come in here and have a smoke-free environment,” he said.
Wes Davidson, a teaching assistant, said he goes to the Shi-Sha every day, but never smokes a hookah.
“I just want a café where I can get coffee, smoke some cigarettes and do some reading,” he said. “I don’t have an office anywhere. I don’t know where else to do that.”
He said the Shisha is a big part of his life and it would be disruptive to him if it were closed. Davidson said he grades many of his students’ papers at the lounge, and wouldn’t know where to go if it were shut down.
“I don’t actually want to go hang out in a tobacco shop, and this is the only venue left,” he said.
Johnston said before the Columbus smoking ban, most coffee shops on campus were smoke-free, and there have long been “tons of options out there for people that don’t want to go to a smoking environment.”
“There is no other business that I can think of that is going to have to worry about a balance between food and smoking like hookah lounges,” he said.
Sabetta said the intent of Issue 5 was to have one equal standard of protection for all businesses in Ohio.
“The intention was never to target hookah bars at all,” she said. “The smoke from a hookah is no different from the smoke from a cigarette. If a hookah bar is truly dedicated to the sale of that type of a tobacco product, then they will follow through with the 80 percent exemption,” Sabetta said.
Johnston said he and his partners have been meeting with accountants to try to come up with solutions to keep the business afloat.
“We’re not going to let it close. We’ve worked so hard to keep it open and people love it,” he said. “We’ve determined our customers want smoke. There has to be some place. If smoking isn’t illegal then there should be a place for smokers to enjoy their company, to hang out, smoke a cigarette and drink a cup of coffee if they want to.”
Johnston said in order for Shisha to bring its business over the 80 percent threshold, they will likely take some of the less popular items off the menu.
“There’s been so much support from the local scene, so many kids that are going to miss this place if it goes, that we just said we can’t close it,” he said. “Everybody knows that smoking isn’t the best thing for you, but they’re adults and they can make their own decisions. It’s one of the few places we can hang out and smoke a hookah. Now they want to take that away too.”
