Hookahs not to smoke up city bars

Deputy commissioner Rajat Agarwal ordered a ban on all hookah bars in the district under Section 144 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPc). According to the official orders, no restaurant or hookah bars can offer hookah to the visitors. A strict action will be taken against the offenders under Section 188 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).

Deputy commissioner Rajat Agarwal ordered a ban on all hookah bars in the district under Section 144 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPc). According to the official orders, no restaurant or hookah bars can offer hookah to the visitors. A strict action will be taken against the offenders under Section 188 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).

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The DC said, "It has come to the notice of the civil surgeon that many restaurants were serving nicotine-based hookah, which is very harmful for health, to visitors. The rule will be applicable to the city, villages and periphery areas of the district."

He said school, college-going students should be made aware about side-effects of the nicotine-based hookah, so that the menace could be curbed effectively. Its pertinent to mention that the trend of flavoured hookah bars and e-cigarettes is on a rise these days. Raids have also been conducted to stop this menace in recent past.

Civil surgeon Dr Renu Chhatwal said, "Though there are no working hookah bars in the city at present due to strict vigilance by the health department, but still awareness regarding ban on these is a must for the society."

She said, "The health department keeps conducting raids to check the practice of hookah bars or e-cigarettes in the district as these could be very harmful for health and mostly teenagers fall to it.