Bliss fighting smoking ban

Adam Bliss first opened Hookah Bliss as a bar and will have to make changes to stay open. DTH/Daixi Xu

Adam Bliss, the 42-year-old owner of Hookah Bliss, reclines in his seat and smokes his favorite shisha, Kashmir Peach.

But that public pastime, and his livelihood, now depend on finding a way to get around the anti-smoking law that will go into effect in a matter of months.

The law, which bans smoking in restaurants and bars, was ratified May 14 and will take effect Jan. 2. Exemptions are made for cigar bars, country clubs and tobacco retailers — but not hookah bars.

“If you look at the exemptions, they’re generally all places that rich, older white men like to smoke,” Bliss said.

“If our representatives liked to smoke in hookah bars, hookah bars would have been exempt as well.”

Hookah smoking is a tradition that originated in India. People smoke flavored tobacco, known as shisha, through multi-stemmed water pipes.

After unsuccessful lobbying to keep the popular tradition alive in Chapel Hill, Bliss is now trying to find loopholes in the law.

Bliss said one idea is to stop serving food and alcohol and start selling only specialty sodas and slushies. If Hookah Bliss received at least 75 percent of its annual revenue from tobacco sales and did not sell food or alcohol, it would qualify as a tobacco shop and be exempt from the ban. But the price of hookah would increase as a result.

“I’m extremely angry,” Bliss said. “I have never been politically involved in anything in my life, and this whole situation has awakened the political activist in me.”

He refuses to give up and said he will not close Hookah Bliss, which opened in 2007.

Before he landed on hookah, Bliss graduated from UNC in 1990 as an anthropology major with a concentration in archaeology.

He worked as a contract archaeologist for six years. Later, he was hired by the Northeast Raleigh Charter Academy, where he taught fourth and fifth grade for half a school year.

Bliss worked at a Raleigh bookstore until almost four years later. Bliss’s wife, Teresa, gave him his first hookah for Valentine’s Day while he was working at the bookstore.

Through trial and error, he mastered the art of smoking it. He had always wanted to open a small neighborhood bar, and hookah seemed like a profitable venture, he said.

And until recently, it was smooth sailing.

But for the last several months, Bliss has been focused on more than business. He has circulated petitions, attended hearings and attempted to reason with N.C. representatives.

Sen. Ellie Kinnaird, D-Orange, said she tried her best to help Bliss stay open but has run out of ideas.

“He put his life savings into this business, and he’s worked hard,” she said. “I certainly understand where he’s coming from.”

Staff and regulars at the hookah bar said they stand by Bliss.

“He’s got a level head on his shoulders, trying to provide a venue that is appreciated by its patrons and make enough to get by,” said Garrett Lagan, a second-year graduate student and Hookah Bliss regular who helped petition against the smoking ban.

“Whatever Adam has to do to stay in business, I’m going to support it.”

Contact the Features Editor at features@unc.edu.