Save our shisha bars!

The UK government’s proposed ban on smoking in outdoor spaces has sparked understandable fears for the hospitality industry – especially for pubs, clubs, sports venues and terraced restaurants, whose outdoor areas will be forced to become smoke-free.

One type of venue that has been largely overlooked in the debate so far is shisha bars. For those unaware, shisha, or water pipes, are a Middle Eastern method of smoking tobacco. While they originate overseas, shisha lounges have become a feature of urban life in many British cities, especially in Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool and London.

London’s Edgware Road is usually buzzing with people enjoying shisha with friends and family, often alongside a warm cup of mint tea or Turkish coffee. The street is renowned for its vast array of Middle Eastern restaurants and shisha cafés, where lightly flavoured smoke wafts through the air, and the clinking of non-alcoholic drinks can be overheard among civilised conversation between loved ones after a day of work.

Shisha bars were hit hard by the 2007 smoking ban, although many venues adapted to the new rules as best they could. Under Keir Starmer’s proposed outdoor smoking ban, this entire culture would be rendered criminal. Across the country, shisha lounges and cafés are facing complete extinction.

Shisha lounges offer an alternative to the pub scene, particularly for communities where alcohol consumption is less common or forbidden. According to Action on Smoking and Health, shisha pipes are most often used by Middle Eastern and South Asian Britons, many of whom are Muslim and so are not permitted to drink alcohol. As someone who grew up in a North African family, I spend a lot of my leisure time at shisha lounges. I celebrated my 18th, 19th and 20th birthdays at shisha lounges with my closest friends, trying different flavour combinations, while drinking mint tea and enjoying traditional Middle Eastern meals.

Many shisha lounges are family-run enterprises, where communities are able to come together and socialise with one another. With more than 500 shisha cafés across the UK, the closure of these venues would be a significant cultural loss for these communities. Omar, owner of Shishawi on Edgware Road, says that the ban would likely ‘kill the social life’ of his customers. Countless friendships have been maintained through the welcoming and warm atmosphere shisha lounges provide.

With the British hospitality industry already on its knees after the pandemic, how can the government even think about shutting down so many businesses at the stroke of a pen? Banning outdoor smoking would not only close every single shisha bar, causing immediate job losses, it would also impact supply chains that are reliant on the industry. Indeed, an impact assessment by Boris Johnson’s Conservative government concluded that banning smoking outdoors would lead to business closures and job losses. Imposing blanket health measures without considering the economic or social consequences is a serious misstep.

There is no denying the health risks associated with smoking, and this applies to shisha, too. But this is an issue of choice. Adults are perfectly aware of the dangers of using tobacco products. Despite the health risks, many adults choose to indulge anyway. And shouldn’t we let them? I cannot see why, in a supposedly free country, adults should not be allowed to make their own decisions about their own health. If we are comfortable with the idea of shutting down hundreds of businesses in the name of ‘public health’, I dread to imagine what other powers we might be comfortable granting the government.

Even if Starmer’s aim really is to promote public health, then heavy-handed measures to ban smoking in outdoor areas are not the way to go. Smoking rates in the UK have already been steadily declining in recent years. In 2022, only 12.9 per cent of adults smoked – the lowest figure since records began. The increased use of vapes, nicotine pouches, heated tobacco and other reduced-risk nicotine products has been a major contributor to this decline, and will likely continue to drive down smoking rates. We should build on this success, rather than resorting to damaging bans.

Sweden exemplifies the success of harm-reduction strategies. As of 2022, its smoking rate fell to just 5.6 per cent, the lowest in the world, according to the Public Health Agency of Sweden. This was achieved not by enforcing outdoor smoking bans, nor by incrementally increasing the age of sale of tobacco, as Labour also plans to, but by permitting adults to use healthier alternatives.

For many people across the UK, especially for communities that do not drink, shisha is quite literally their only ‘vice’. Yet this killjoy government seems hellbent on taking it away.

Reem Ibrahim is the acting director of communications and Linda Whetstone Scholar at the Institute of Economic Affairs.