Madras High Court rejects plea to grant hookah licence

Chennai: The Madras high court has declined to entertain a petition, which sought a direction to the Chennai corporation to grant a licence to a restaurant on the East Coast Road in Neelangarai to use hookah.

Justice S. Vaidyanathan dismissed the petition filed by Drizzle Restaurant, which sought a direction to the Chennai corporation commissioner to consider its representation and consequently grant hookah license.

“As hookah is proved to be more harmful than cigarettes and that it is not permitted in Chennai corporation limits and not included in the schedule of trade license, as stated in the rejection order of the corporation, this court is not inclined to grant any relief to the petitioner, much less the relief sought in this petition”, the judge added.

The judge said it was a well-known fact that similar to cigarettes, hookah smoking contained the addictive drug nicotine and it was at least as toxic as cigarette smoking. Many hookah smokers may consider this practice less harmful than smoking cigarettes, but hookah smoking carries many of the same health risks as cigarettes. Hookahs were water pipes that were used to smoke specially made tobacco that was usually flavoured.

Hookah smoking was typically practised in groups, with the same mouthpiece passed from person to person. The charcoal used to heat tobacco in the hookah increases health risks by producing smoke that contains high levels of carbon monoxide, metals and cancer-causing chemicals.

The volume of smoke inhaled during a typical hookah session was about 90,000 millilitres, compared with 500 to 600 millilitres inhaled when smoking a cigarette. Doctors say that passive smokers were more vulnerable to cancer, the judge added.