Jeddah, Saudi Arabia’s second largest city, is the latest target of a worldwide crackdown on tobacco products being consumed in public places, with the news that an apparently years-old government regulation against the smoking of sheesha - otherwise known as the hookah or water pipe - will start to be enforced.
According to Arabnews.com, from now on the city’s more than 300 cafes that serve sheeshas face being warned, fined and then shut down if caught violating the legislation by roving municipal inspectors. The main reason for the application of the legislation is said to be because of one Jeddah cafe having added more than just tobacco in their pipes, with the municipality also receiving complaints that boys and girls were visiting the cafes; no doubt public health fears have a part to play as well.
Most cafe owners ars understandably up in arms about the matter, citing its sale as contributing the most revenue and profits to their business; they make the rest of their money from ancillary products such as food and drinks. Plans are being made to form a committee to protest the authorities actions.
It will be interesting to see what the consequences of banning this popular social pastime from the city environs are. The Arabnews.com article suggested that people would just have to travel further, outside the city limits, to smoke up in public. That of course leaves private homes and unlicensed venues left for sheesha customers to frequent, both of which would in all likelihood increase, with the ostensible reason for the crackdown being put even further away from the eyes of the authorities, particularly in the case of backstreet operations.
