Shisha shutdown?

PUBS THROUGHOUT England joined Ireland, Scotland and Wales in a new smoke-free era at 6am on July 1. With smokers no longer attracted to pubs to the same degree, licensees began to rely on other means to fill the business void this new legislation left. Pubs have turned to food, entertainment and a new customer base to try to fill this gap. Elsewhere in the hospitality trade this has proved even more tricky.

Shisha cafés, largely Muslim-run establishments whose business is based around offering flavoured tobacco smoked via a water pipe, had no such options. Almost exclusively, the reason customers visit shisha cafés is to smoke. They do not sell alcohol for religious reasons. Most have a basic drinks offer of tea and non-alcoholic drinks. It is rare for shisha venues to sell food.

On London's Edgware Road, in areas of Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds, Bradford, and many others, significant numbers of the estimated 500 shisha cafés nationwide closed their doors forever on the evening of June 30. With no reason for the business to exist other than for indoor smoking which was now banned, they had little choice. Now, just over a month into smoke-free England, these once-thriving high streets stand desolate.

While many licensees passionately debating the smoking issue would find it hard to stomach an argument that they have it relatively easy, this is how it seems to shisha café operators.

Ibrahim El-Nour, chief executive of the Edgware Road Association and leader of the Save the Shisha campaign, says: "In pubs, the main attraction is the drink, and we know from statistics from Ireland, Scotland and Wales, trade has gone down only by about 15 per cent because cigarettes are a side activity that pubs don't even directly benefit from.

"English pubs will be hit, but it will be marginal. They can diversify because the core attraction of drinking, which usually generates around 70 or 80 per cent of the takings, remains. The problem with shisha is that 90 per cent of their business activity has disappeared."In our case the whole place is set up for smoking shisha, nothing else. These cafés cannot stay open just selling cola. That is where the difference lies."Inadequate consultation

Ibrahim believes that his members and other shisha businesses were not adequately consulted by the government in the run-up to the ban. While parties interested in conventional smoking, such as pubs, were involved in the debate, shisha smoking was overlooked by the consultation, he claims.

Last year licensees got the opportunity to put their views to ministers in a formal consultation. They hotly debated proposals to allow smoking in non-food pubs but not those serving food, and fought over suggestions that dedicated smoking rooms would be a good idea. They will be interested in the experience that Ibrahim claims those in the shisha business had.

He says that he had communicated with government as early as June 2006, several months before the consultation period closed on October 9, with a letter to ministers. On behalf of his 600 members, he put across the case that shisha cafés should be exempted from the ban on grounds of the disproportionate impact it would have. The lobbying has continued ever since.Issue not properly debated

He claims that the government was not willing to engage with his arguments. "They have not dealt with the issue as a cultural activity," he says. "All the documents dealt with tobacco smoking, not shisha. The issue relating to shisha has not been properly debated. They made the decision without involving us - the communities whose culture and business would be adversely affected."

Ibrahim argues that shisha smoking does not produce the same problems with passive smoking as conventional cigarettes, a fact which he believes has not been taken into consideration.

The passive smoking debate centres around 'main stream' smoke and 'side stream' smoke. Main stream is classed as smoke emanating from smokers when they exhale. This accounts for around five per cent of the harm first-hand smoking has.

Side stream refers to smoke passing from a burning cigarette. This accounts for a much greater degree of harm, as much as 85 per cent of the impact that first-hand smoke has. Shisha pipes, where the tobacco is entirely enclosed, do not produce this second smoke source. When the user stops inhaling, the pipe stops producing smoke.

The Save the Shisha campaign now faces a race against time in a bid to force the government into a judicial review. Ibrahim believes that the cafés that remain open - around 10 per cent of those that existed before July 1 - will all close when the winter arrives.

"The government finally replied to us in mid-July, simply saying it was not going to exempt it and inviting us to go to court," Ibrahim says. "We are now trying to raise enough money, around £20,000, to do that. If that doesn't work, we face a situation where this diversity will disappear totally. We are looking at an entire culture being wiped out. The cohesion and spirit of these areas will go down with these cafés."

It is a grave situation that may make businesses which rely rather less on smoking be thankful for small mercies.

Response from the Department of Health A Department of Health spokesman said: "Anything that is smoked is covered by the new law, including manufactured and hand-rolled cigarettes, pipes, cigars, herbal cigarettes and water pipes.

ccording to the World Health Organization (WHO) advice, 'using a waterpipe to smoke tobacco poses a serious potential health hazard to smokers and others exposed to the smoke emitted', and 'secondhand smoke from waterpipes is a mixture of tobacco smoke in addition to smoke from the fuel, and therefore poses a serious health risk for non-smokers'.

The WHO therefore recommends 'waterpipes should be prohibited in public places consistent with bans on cigarette and other forms of tobacco smoking'.

"The government believes that including premises that serve shisha under the provisions of the new smoke-free law is in keeping with the primary objective of the legislation, which is to reduce the risks to health from exposure to secondhand smoke.

"The government has undertaken to comprehensively review smoke-free legislation three years after implementation, and there is no intention to create any further exemptions from the new law until after that review."

Views from the shisha café ownersMiramar and Palms Palace are two cafés on Edgware Road, London, that are able to serve food, but are nevertheless struggling after July 1.Mohammed Baker of Miramar says: "The 150 seats inside this café is what I have worked for. Outside, we have 10 tables, which is not enough.

"Without smoking inside, you lose the atmosphere. People used to come in to meet, to speak to each other. Now it is just like a normal coffee shop, and people will increasingly stay at home. You can't buy the atmosphere at home, you can't buy the music, the art, the company."Qais Ali, manager of Palms Palace adds: "Our tradition, our fantasy has been taken away from us.

"The smoking ban won't have nearly as big a damaging effect for pubs as it will for us. Ultimately, are we going to survive? No."