A November 2011 file photo shows customers smoking shisha at Shi Shawarma restaurant on Yonge Street in Toronto.Deborah Baic/The Globe and Mail
Health concerns about non-tobacco water pipe smoking in Toronto's hookah establishments have led city licensing staff to pursue regulations.
Cleaning and sanitizing measures, a ban on entry by minors and efforts to control air quality are among proposed new rules in a report going before the licensing committee Friday.
Hookah, also known as shisha, narghile or goza, comes in either tobacco or herbal form and is smoked through a water pipe that heats the substance with charcoal and cools the smoke in a water chamber before it is inhaled through a hose and mouthpiece.
Smoking in enclosed public and work spaces was banned by the Smoke-Free Ontario Act in 2006, making it illegal for hookah lounges to serve tobacco shisha indoors. The ban doesn't cover non-tobacco herbal shisha that hookah establishments offer in a variety of fruity flavours.
The licensing division's report estimates that there are approximately 80 restaurants, bars and cafes that offer hookah in Toronto.
Toronto Public Health has laid charges against 25 establishments for providing tobacco shisha since 2010.
"I don't think the government should have a say in it, period," said Samira Mohyeddin, manager of Iranian restaurant Banu on Queen Street West, which serves hookah. "The licence, I'm sure, is just another way to make money."
She said her restaurant already follows many of the proposed regulations.
Banu only offers non-tobacco hookah and Ms. Mohyeddin said the restaurant already thoroughly cleans hookah pipes to prevent them from clogging and sanitizes them with alcohol.
She often turns away young patrons, Ms. Mohyeddin said.
"I don't really enjoy 12-year-olds coming to my establishment and smoking," she said.
The proposed licence rules would require hookah bars to retain ingredient lists and packaging to prove that the shisha they offer is tobacco free. They would also have to maintain proper ventilation to address air quality concerns over shisha smoke and burning charcoal from the hookah pipe.
The idea that herbal shisha is safer than other forms of smoking is a wide misconception, said Suzanne Thibault, manager of Toronto Public Health's chronic disease injury prevention department.
Smoking tobacco-free shisha produces the same amount of carbon monoxide, nitric oxide and tar as tobacco shisha, according to research cited in a Toronto Public Health report.
"The only difference has been that tobacco hookah would obviously have the nicotine whereas in herbal, it wouldn't," said Ms. Thibault. "In terms of other toxicants, they're just as harmful."
Diseases such as meningitis and herpes may also be transmitted through pipe sharing, which is why the licence would require establishments to properly clean each hookah pipe before use.