The UAE authorities will soon intend to enact a new anti-tobacco law, according to which cafes and restaurants that offer visitors hookah smoking and depend on this type of profit will have to move outside residential areas and cities.
As soon as the new federal law is ratified by the UAE Cabinet of Ministers, cafes and restaurants will be given six months in order to either close, or move to a specially designated place, or to dismantle all hookah smoking accessories and items, concentrating only on cooking and serving to customers snacks and drinks. "The law will explicitly state that all restaurants and cafes offering hookah smoking will be required to move from residential areas to industrial areas," said Dr. Vidad Almeydur, director of the tobacco control unit at the UAE Ministry of Health. “After the law has officially entered into force, the ministry will begin numerous checks on how its provisions are being followed.”
According to Almeydur, her unit is also negotiating and discussing with the Ministry of Health and other competent authorities that smoking in the UAE should be allowed only outside and in no case inside buildings. This may apply to hotels in the country, which will have to move smoking rooms to the open air.
