Rhode Island tries to regulate hookah bars

(Published in The Providence Journal on May 25, 2014)

PROVIDENCE – “One Bourbon, One Scotch and One Beer” boogies out of a sound system inside Nara in the popular Federal Hill district one night. But around the room, most of the bubbles are burbling through hookah pipes, not in glasses at the bar. A couple at a corner table -- he's in jacket and tie, she's in formal dress -- clink glasses and share a pipe. Near the window, a mellow fellow in from Detroit on business, whose favorite hookah flavor is pumpkin pie, thumbs through his phone, uses a hookah and declares the place “very chill.” A short walk down Atwells Avenue, four businessmen dine at a window table in Opa, where the bar surface alternately glows red, blue, green and gold. Every so often each uses a hookah barely noticeable in the fine-dining atmosphere. Two hours later, they drive off in SUVs, one a Porsche Cayenne. A visitor seeking Federal Hill's traditional Little Italy may wonder if they've arrived in Little Lebanon. Rhode Island's capital city has experienced a profusion of bars, lounges and restaurants with hookah since the mid-2000s. But unlike these Federal Hill establishments, which abide by state law that allows them to offer hookah, some others in Providence have been hauled before the city Board of Licenses for doing so illegally. It appears that some hookah bars open without regard for any state regulation. A 2005 Rhode Island law banned indoor smoking -- with some exceptions. To be allowed to establish a “smoking lounge,” there is one time-consuming and complex path. First, a business must file an affidavit with the state Division of Taxation every year attesting that at least 51 percent of the business's annual revenue comes from tobacco. Then the business must go to the city Board of Licenses to ask for a tobacco license (which also covers hookah smoking). If a business with a smoking lounge opens, let's say, midyear, it is given a year and a half of operating before it must submit its first affidavit of tobacco sales to the Division of Taxation. If a hookah bar doesn't meet the 51-percent threshold, the state tax division notifies the state Department of Health, which then sends a letter to the establishment that says it isn't complying with the law. The Department of Health, after it receives two complaints, notifies the town solicitor. The notified city or municipality can then fine the business and/or revoke the business's license. Neil Downing, of the Division of Taxation, said there is nothing in the state law that gives a set time period for an establishment to correct the problem. The city began to crack down on hookah bars after 2012 when the City Council and Mayor Angel Taveras, citing health interests, passed laws banning sales of flavored tobacco products. The police acted after finding social media advertisements suggesting people could smoke in places that authorities suspected didn't have the necessary license, according to Steven M. Paré, the Providence public safety commissioner. Health officials, including the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, have made clear they see tobacco smoked in a hookah as a health risk. James Palmer, spokesman for the state Department of Health, said that “adding the exemptions” to the state's no-smoking law, allowing for such things as hookah, “was not an effort [the department] supported, and we would like to see them addressed by the legislature.” Palmer said the Health Department is supporting bills in the General Assembly that would require hookah bars to register with the state on Jan. 1, which is now not required. In addition to registering with the state, they would have to file revenue reports four times a year, instead of just one, to prove the business meets the 51-percent threshold. Rep. Teresa Tanzi, D-South Kingstown, the House bill's sponsor, told the House Health, Education and Welfare Committee at the State House that as hookah businesses have proliferated in the past couple of years, it has become much harder for the Division of Taxation to keep track of things. “Each establishment would have to register with the Division of Taxation and say this is who we are, this is where we are,” Tanzi testified in March. Peter Asen, director of Taveras' healthy communities office, said the quarterly reporting would mirror what is already the rule in Massachusetts. If it were done in Rhode Island, the businesses every three months would have to show they legally can offer hookah smoking. Karina Wood, of the American Lung Association, told the committee that “we felt the hookah bars are taking advantage of this one very narrow exception in the law for the smoking bar and are just running riot with it.” As of Friday, the bill remained in the House committee, which on March 26 held it for further study. A matching Senate bill, sponsored by Sen. Gayle Goldin, D-Providence, was in the Senate Finance Committee. In 2013, and over the past several months, businesses suspected of not meeting smoking-bar requirements have faced trouble with city licensing authorities. On Federal Hill, Aywa, which advertises “restaurant & bar” and “hookah lounge” on its façade on Atwells Avenue, received a cease-and-desist order in February because it was not permitted to be a smoking lounge. The business's proprietor, George Khalife, apologized to the licensing board and said associates had either misinformed him about what was allowed or advertised incorrectly. In February, the city board suspended the license of Escape, a bar and grill in Providence's Wanskuck neighborhood, where officers said a DJ was smoking hookah. Among violations the board cited was smoking on the premises. In December 2013, the police said, people were smoking hookah at 12 tables at Montecristo bar and restaurant in the city's Elmwood section. The business was not permitted to have hookah and was fined $150 for each of 12 counts of illegal smoking by the Providence Board of Licenses, plus $500 for having unlicensed entertainment. In October, Dubai, a restaurant in the city's Washington Park neighborhood, admitted to the licensing board that it had been illegally offering hookah and received $3,500 in fines, as well as cease-and-desist orders, to settle complaints brought by the police. “I don't believe the majority of them, or all of them, thought it was illegal,” Paré said, “because it's not your typical tobacco” but “more of a vapor -- but it is secondhand smoke.” “The whole purpose,” Paré said, “is to keep people who don't want to inhale second-hand smoke” away from the indoor smoking.

For businesses that go through the state process to allow them to have hookah, there seems to be plenty of demand to make the paperwork worth it. Gianfranco Marrocco, who owns Providence eateries such as Mediterraneo, as well as Skarr, a Federal Hill hookah bar, said it isn't hard to meet the revenue threshold in order to offer hookah. One sitting with a hookah typically costs $30 to $50 while a drink is well below that, he said. Joe Karam, owner of Opa, spoke of hookah as part of a tradition, a culture. “It's not something” a person quickly smokes and then leaves. Rather, people come to have dinner, to take their time. A pipe can be shared among several people and a customer can have his or her own mouthpiece. Hookah has been enjoyed for centuries all over the world, especially in the Middle East. It is gaining popularity in Rhode Island, and along with it comes the calls for its regulation.