Categories
· Business (Tobacco)
· Dining/Entertainment
· Hookahs/Shisha / Water Pipes
non-USA, by Country
· Iraq
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With improved security and more young men with money to spend, clubs offering hookah pipes to smoke are cropping up all over the capital.
Jump to full article: Los Angeles Times, 2009-03-01
Author: Monte Morin and Caesar Ahmed
Intro: Although hookah cafes have enjoyed a fad in Western cities from Los Angeles to Berlin in the last few years, and smoking establishments are common throughout the Middle East, Iraqis have only recently embraced them.
The reason: Under dictator Saddam Hussein, the smoke-filled shisha clubs were seen as a breeding ground for conspiracy and dissent. The few restaurants and hotels allowed to open the cafes required numerous government permits and attracted a corps of eavesdropping intelligence agents.
It wasn't until the last year, when Iraq's security situation began to stabilize and business investment began to trickle back, that shisha cafes started popping up on Baghdad's streets.
Today the city has hundreds of them, varying from hole-in-the-wall dives to lavishly decorated salons.
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