After racking up about $6,000 in fines, a local hookah bar’s beer display shelves lie empty.
Without the alcohol for sale, Hookah Bliss will no longer be subject to the state’s indoor smoking ban.
Owner Adam Bliss has been fighting the ban since it went into effect in January.
Story so Far
Jan. 2, 2010: The N.C. indoor smoking ban goes into effect.
January to March: Hookah Bliss operates business as usual, making no changes to come into compliance.
Mar. 22: Delivery of first administrative penalty of $200 by Orange County Health Department. Charged $200 for every day remained open.
Tuesday: Bliss decides to stop selling alcohol and gets rid of his ABC permit, which should bring him into compliance under the law.
Hookah bars were not exempt from the bill, but Bliss refused to close shop or change his business model. He received violation notices from the Orange County Health Department, which resulted in the daily fines of $200 since March 22.
But now, after incurring fees in the thousands, Bliss has decided to give up his Alcoholic Beverage Commission permit. Because the indoor smoking ban applies to restaurants and bars, the decision means Hookah Bliss should now qualify as a tobacco shop.
A tobacco shop must receive no less than 75 percent of total annual revenue from selling tobacco and can’t offer food or alcohol, said Tom Konsler, Orange County Health Department’s environmental director.
Bliss said that even though he’ll lose about 25 percent of his monthly profit, he can’t afford to continue paying the fines.
“You have to ask, why would alcohol have anything to do with smoking?” he said. “If what we were doing was wrong when we served alcohol, is it suddenly not wrong now that we’re not?”
For Bliss to officially come into compliance with the law, the Orange County Health Department must verify that Bliss gave up his ABC permit and is no longer selling alcoholic beverages, Konsler said.
Bliss contacted Konsler yesterday to let him know he had given up his ABC permit. As of Tuesday night, Konsler had not returned Bliss’s request to verify his compliance.
Despite not having an ABC permit, Bliss said he will let his customers “brown-bag,” or bring in beer and unfortified wine, which contains 16 percent or less alcohol by volume.
Agnes Stevens, spokesperson for N.C. Alcohol Beverage Control Commission, said Bliss does not need an ABC or brown-bagging permit to allow customers to bring in beer or unfortified wine.
Bliss decided to discontinue beer sales after finding a lawyer who agreed to take on the case at $200 an hour — money that Bliss doesn’t have.
But Bliss is convinced that hiring a lawyer and going through an appeals process is the best option for saving his business.
“They will never re-open H2,” he said, referencing the indoor smoking ban bill. Once he has the money to hire a lawyer, he hopes to show the courts the law doesn’t apply to hookah bars.
Rep. Jennifer Weiss (D-Wake), like other representatives, said that hookah bars missed an opportunity during the bill drafting process to change the legislation.
A few legislators tried crafting an exemption for hookah bars similar to that for cigar bars. But a number of provisions were placed on hookah bars, including one requiring patrons to be 21 or older. Consequently, bar owners asked that the amendment be pulled.
“I think if they are interested in changing the law, they need to organize folks interested in it,” Weiss said. “Make a compelling argument and convince a majority of people in House and Senate that it’s a good thing to do.”
But Weiss added that there isn’t “a lot of appetite” for reopening the bill because there are some who would be happy to “water it down.”
Hookah Bliss employee Andrew Scarlett said most of the bar’s customers are under 21, so not selling beer shouldn’t affect sales.
“We have to raise the price just a little bit on hookahs,” he said. “But that won’t stop the majority of people from coming in.”
Contact the City Editor at citydesk@unc.edu.
