Flavours of the hookah are the new mania of the school students in the State capital. Bhopal has been flooded with hookah lounges, but the authorities are only mute spectators.
School going students could be found in smoking the sheesha in several hookah lounges of the city.
Hookah lounges have become a new haven for the students to escape away from the classes and for using the free Wi-Fi. Other facilities like separate cabins for young couples are also available in some of the lounges. Students could safely spend their school hours lying inside any of the lounge, smoking the sheesha.
In some of the lounges, ganja (marijuana) is used in the hookahs, but nobody is concerned about the situation. By serving marijuana or exposing school students to tobacco through such hookah lounges is unheeded by the authorities.
While talking to ‘The Pioneer’, DIG Bhopal Raman Singh Sikarwar expressed his inability to take action on such lounges stating that he did earlier launch a campaign against them, but those lounge owners brought some verdicts from the High Court claming that they should be allowed to do business.
The hookah lounges in the city offer various flavours of the hookah at a very cheap price mostly starting from Rs 200. The youngsters of the city as well as the juveniles are deeply fond of hookah.
Smoking hookah is easy as the number of hookah lounges has risen in the last five years.
Hookah smoking is typically practiced in groups, with the same mouthpiece passed from person to person. This could also transmit various diseases such as tuberculosis or swine flu.
“There is no separate licence for serving the hookah, owners are bending the rules and regulation by serving hookah to the juveniles. Hookah lounge owners are serving the hookahs on the food licenses. According to the rules, separate smoking zones should also be constructed in every hookah lounge but youths are smoking hookah and cigarette together in the lounges. We are continuously conducting raids on the hookah lounges to ensure that no immoral activity is going on there,” Food and Drug Administration Joint Controller, Madhya Pradesh, Pramod Shukla said.
Notably, police officials had raided various hookah lounges of the city on Friday. Reportedly, the officials had also sought IDs from the customers. Food and drugs department also conducts regular raids to check out activities in hookah lounges.
A hookah lounge owner, Ankur Gupta says, “Police officials raid our lounges now and then, without any specific reason. They mistreat our customers, who are not concerned with the raid. Any person more than 18 years of age can be served hookah in designated smoking zones, so the customers are actually not breaking any rule. Government should determine its policies and should make a strict law for the lounges, raiding the lounges is not a solution,” he added.
Gupta further added it is prohibited to serve hookah in open air but several lounges are serving it in open air without any problem, the officials should also conduct raids on those lounges. Earlier, in February 2016, The Madhya Pradesh high court had allowed restaurants, pubs and cafes to serve hookah in designated smoking zones.
According to Supreme Court rulings, any person more than 18 years of age can be served hookah in designated smoking zones. The apex court had held that the hotel and restaurant owners cannot be permitted to offer hookah or use of tobacco products by pipe or by any other instrument on each and every table under the garb of service, but it can be permitted in ‘smoking area’.