The Sept. 1 smoking ban will not leave all smokers in the cold this fall. DeKalb’s Municipal Code allows a few exceptions to the smoking ban.

Right now, the only indoor tobacco enjoyment one can get is from a hookah.
Huka Corner, 811 W. Lincoln Highway, is among the other retail tobacco stores where cigarette smoking is not regulated.

While Huka Corner may allow cigarette smoking, owner Mohammed Labadi has banned the smoking of cigarettes due to new furniture and remodeling.

“I get customers that don’t smoke [cigarettes],” Labadi said. “About 90 percent.”

Labadi said cigarette smoke and hookah smoke is very different. Smoke from a hookah does not carry the same smell as smoke from a cigarette.

Assistant city attorney Dawn Didier said the hookah bar is exempt under the main business exemption, which says any store that utilizes the sale of tobacco will not be regulated under the ban.

Sue Mustafa, co-owner of Smoker’s World, 818 W. Lincoln Highway, said she allows customers to smoke cigarettes inside the store. Mustafa and her husband are the only employees and they don’t smoke.

According to Didier, the smoking ban that passed in February 2006 was meant to protect people who do not smoke.

“One reason is the employees in restaurants and bars are inhaling secondhand smoke,” Didier said.

Hookah bar employees are still at risk of inhaling secondhand smoke just as other restaurant employees were. But, if smoking was not allowed in a hookah bar, it would go out of business.

Labadi said he has not yet seen an increase in business because of the smoking ban. Labadi said he may allow cigarettes to be smoked inside in the future.

“There’s more pollutants outside from cars,” Labadi said.

Despite the hookah bar having the same consequence for workers who knowingly work around secondhand smoke as restaurant employees did, Labadi says that whether or not the bar will be an exception is up to the city.

“I can feel for the 20 percent of people who smoke,” Labadi said. “I think they should get a choice.”

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