Analysts generally saw the move as an effort by the Ahmadi-nejad camp to appeal for votes in the Majlis elections just 14 weeks away. Others said the government was just caving in to the powerful teahouse lobby.
Deputy Hossain-Ali Shahr-iari, chair of the Majlis Health Committee, said the cabinet decision was illegal since it directly contradicted the law.
The water pipes were banned as part of an anti-smoking health campaign that started to become popular among conservatives a decade ago.
The legislation passed in 2006 restricted tobacco sales and tried to discourage smoking in general. It banned water pipes outright as a major health hazard.
But the Health Ministry under President Ahmadi-nejad hemmed and hawed and generally ignored the law, although some cities acted on the legislation and cleared the water pipes out of eating places.
In May 2010, Deputy Health Minister Hassan Emami-Rezavi told the state news agency the issue of clearing hookahs out of teahouses and traditional eateries had been under discussion for some time and a plan had just been adopted to get rid of the pipes. There appears to have been a feeble effort to do so in late 2010.
The Majlis banned the water pipes in 2006, but teahouse owners and aficionados fought their extinction fiercely and showed they had considerable influence inside the Ahmadi-nejad Administration.
The water pipe is known as a ghaliyan in Persian and a nargilah in Arabic. In the West, it is variously called a hookah, hubble-bubble or water pipe.
The smoking of hookahs has become popular among young North Americans in recent years and several cities in the United States have passed special legislation allowing hookah dens despite the general bans on smoking in restaurants that have been growing in popularity.
The hookah is a pipe with a long tube passing through an urn of water, which cools the smoke as it is drawn through.
The Majlis passed the water pipe ban after the Ministry of Health said the hookah is the equivalent of smoking 20 cigarettes at once.
Since the law was enacted in 2006, enforcement has been sketchy. The legislation was not seriously implemented until December 2007—and then only briefly. The very next month, the government decided to ignore part of the law, banning smoking hookahs in public places like parks, while allowing water pipes to reappear in teahouses.
The shift showed the government being responsive to the concerns of teahouse owners, but it also showed the Ahmadi-nejad Administration simply ignoring an act of the legislature.
After 2 1/2 years of tolerating the water pipes in teahouses, the government moved last year to ban them. But it isn’t clear that the ban was actually enforced. Two weeks ago, however, the Court of Administrative Justice intervened and ruled that all tobacco must be banned from all eating establishments.
It may have been that ruling that prompted the cabinet to act on behalf of the teahouse lobby and the legions of hookah smokers.
In 2006, the conservative-controlled Majlis approved a comprehensive tobacco statute that outlawed the sale of tobacco products to people under 18, imposed a fine of one-month’s wages on those found smoking at work, and banned smoking in public buildings, on public transport and in public places, including restaurants. That had the effect of banning the water pipes from restaurants and teahouses.
Many teahouses operate in working class and downtown areas offering cheap food along with water pipes. Traditional teahouses are also a tourist attraction and a hangout for young men and women in historic towns.
The smoking of water pipes is a popular pastime throughout Iran on social occasions, especially among the middle and lower classes, and it has become socially acceptable for women as well as men to puff away—though conservatives are appalled at the sight of women drawing on water pipes.
The sight of men sitting outside teahouses quietly puffing away while the water in the base of the pipe burbles is centuries-old.
Virtually all restaurants, cafes and parks where families congregate have maintained a large supply of water pipes to rent to patrons. Water pipes also have become de rigueur in homes and are brought out for guests in the evenings. Those in private homes are not banned by the 2006 law.