Give 'Em a Hookah

From Newsday via Free-Market.Net

Owners of nearly two dozen hookah bars say their businesses have been threatened by [New York] city's smoking ban, and argue that hookah-smoking is a deep-rooted cultural practice that deserves exemption from the ban.

The owners, who operate about 20 bars located mostly on a stretch of Steinway Street in Queens called Little Egypt, say investigators from the city Health Department have issued them crippling fines for allowing customers to smoke fruit-flavored tobacco called shisha indoors, The New York Times reported Tuesday.

Whole thing here.