Hookahs: Who the Hell is Smoking These?

Hookahs—a.ka. “narghile,” “shisha,” and “burblery”—are they invading your midwestern town? Every article I’ve read about the burgeoning trend—in Chicago, for instance—name-checks New York, as if around every corner is a lounge filled with reclining twenty-somethings, puffing lazily from the hoses of an ornate water-pipe. I mean, that is New York, but the hookah is usually filled with dank bud and ground-up fingernails, not fruity, flavored tobacco.

Somehow hookah smoking gets past the city-wide indoor smoking ban, despite the fact that the tobacco smoked is just as carcinogenic as regular cigarettes. (Studies vary on the degree of harm from hookah smoke, but come on; it’s still tobacco, which is plenty harmful all by itself.)

My girlfriend fondly recalls smoking a hookah above a Mediterranean cafe in Kansas City a few years ago, but the recent implication is that hookah bars are the new thing to do for those too young to legally drink booze or those looking for a social occasion that is more relaxed. Yet I don’t know of a single person who actually goes to hookah bars with any regularity. Is this a real trend or just the false hype of a slow news day?