49.0°,
Fair Up in smoke
Village bans hookah bars with no public discussion
The vote was unanimous — hookah bars are now banned from the Village of Rockville Centre.
No one spoke up at the public hearing on the proposed ban at the Board of Trustees meeting on Monday. The board asked if anyone had any questions, and none of the 20 or so residents in attendance responded. After less than 30 seconds, the board moved to close the public discussion and approve the bill.
Resident Liz Boylan clapped, and said, “Thank you for that law.”
At hookah lounges, people smoke flavored tobacco, called shisha, through a water pipe. The establishments have become increasingly popular in the past few years, especially among young people. There are more than a dozen hookah lounges on Long Island, although hookah smoking, according to many studies, is just as unhealthy as cigarette smoking.
Rockville Centre joins the Village of Patchogue and the City of Glen Cove in banning hookah bars.
Trustee Michael Sepe took a moment near the end of the meeting to explain the bill — and to respond to the Herald’s Oct. 2-8 editorial, “Village should leave hookah bars alone.”
“The part of the editorial that I take particular issue with, and but for I probably wouldn’t be making these comments, is that the editorial speculated there must be a ‘real reason’ we were doing this — the implication being that it was something other than what we said — specifically what I said,” Sepe said.
He pointed out that the village also bans tattoo parlors and head shops for the same reason it banned hookah bars. “For the information of the public, the village boards, not just in Rockville Centre but everywhere, have a responsibility to make these types of decisions,” Sepe said. “And we have in our code ordinances that prohibit things like trailer parks, and slaughterhouses, and junkyards, because we actually do have a right to regulate establishments that are permitted uses.”
Sepe added that banning hookah bars before someone tried to open one in the village was a proactive measure “to prevent an issue before it became an issue.”
