Local hookah shop owner on hunger strike, wants people allowed to smoke in his cafe
Posted April 21, 2015 11:42 am.
Last Updated April 21, 2015 12:22 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – A man who has operated a hookah shop on Vancouver’s Davie Street for 17 years is on hunger strike as he continues a legal fight to save his cafe.
If the appeal is successful, that could mean the City of Vancouver’s anti-smoking bylaw might have to be rewritten.
It’s now been a week since 68-year-old Hamid Mohammadian has last had a bite to eat. It’s his way of protesting as a judge hears his case to strike down a bylaw which bans him from allowing people to smoke from a water pipe in his cafe, the Persian Teahouse.
Under provincial law, hookah shops are legal if they don’t serve tobacco.
“I changed from tobacco,” says Mohammadian. “I bring herbal — no tar, no nicotine.”
Vancouver’s bylaw goes a step further, banning smoking of any kind inside businesses, even the herbal blend offered at the Persian Teahouse.
“Our legal position is that it’s over broad,” says Dean Davison, the lawyer representing Mohammadian. “They’re overreaching their powers. They’re supposed to be dealing with health issues. Just because someone smokes it… you’re going well beyond health issues.”
“The definition is if you smoke any substance in a hookah pipe… the issue we have — one of the issues — is ‘any substance’ is ridiculous. It’s just to aggressive. Just because a substance is smoked, it doesn’t make it harmful — it doesn’t make second-hand smoke harmful.”
Davison says while the primary argument will focus on the bylaw’s sweeping definition, he will also ask the judge to consider that smoking hookah is a cultural practice.
