Still smoking in the District

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Beneath the trendy Tabaq restaurant in the U Street corridor lies a hookah bar, a remaining legal refuge for smokers of a different kind.

The District's smoking ban went into effect last week, snuffing out smokers in almost all the city's bars, restaurants and hotels. But for bars that feature the ancient Middle Eastern water pipe, known as a hookah or shisha pipe, along with cigar bars, the new law does not prohibit them from catering to tobacco loyalists.

"I want to make sure if somebody wants to smoke, we can give them a place to do it," said Omer Buyukbayrak, who owns Tabaq. "And it's an important part of the business."

As cities across the country clamp down on smoking in public areas, hookah bars are growing in popularity. The District has at least seven hookah bars and many restaurants that offer the pipes as an after-dinner treat.

In the past five years, 200 to 300 hookah bars have opened nationwide, mostly in California, but also in New York and most often near college campuses, according to tobacco industry estimates.

Ehab Asal, owner of the Prince Cafe, which has multiple locations in the Washington area that offer hookah pipes, said the exemption for hookah bars is fair.

"The hookah goes with the atmosphere of Indian and Turkish cuisine," he said. "It is part of the experience of coming to the restaurant."

Because hookah pipes are considered almost essential to the existence of the bars, D.C. Council member Jim Graham, Ward 1 Democrat, authored the exemption in the smoking-ban legislation.

"The smoking ban is not intended to be a prohibition," Mr. Graham said. "There are places that smoking is so implicit that it ought to exist. If you banned smoking in places like hookah bars, you may as well close them down," he added.

The exemption is granted to cigar and hookah bars if they rely on tobacco sales for at least 10 percent of their revenue. Other existing businesses can apply for a waiver if they prove the ban imposes an "economic hardship." Future establishments are not applicable for an exemption.