MUMBAI: The bill introduced by the Maharashtra government in April to ban
hookah parlours in the state has received the President’s assent, paving the way for an immediate ban.
The Maharashtra government has amended the Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products (Prohibition of Advertisement and Regulation of Trade and Commerce, Production, Supply and Distribution) Act (COTPA), 2003, to ban hookah parlours. The President’s assent was received towards end of September and the Maharashtra government issued a notification affecting the ban on Thursday.
“Gujarat has already banned hookah parlours, Maharashtra will be the second state in India to do so. Besides use of tobacco, there were complaints of use of drugs in these parlours,” said an official from the home department.
Officials said that now with the law being amended, the police will launch a crackdown on hookah parlours. Earlier, the police crackdown was limited because of the uncertainty about the rules.
The BMC had barred the use of tobacco in the form of cigarattes, bidis or even hookah in all restaurants and hotels and even on licenced premises in 2010 but the Supreme Court struck down the ban in 2014 citing COTPA, letting such establishments function. Since then, the state had been wanting to amend the Act to regulate the parlours.
However, it was only after the 2017
Kamala Mills fire that files were moved swiftly to bring in a law to crack down on hookah parlours. "This was because an investigation into the fire that killed 14 persons showed that the blaze was caused due to ambers of a hookah pot at a restaurant. The ambers flew and fell on curtains which caught fire," said an official.
(Representative image)
