President Ahmadinejad and smoking revival

Last winter, Iran’s Health Ministry in cooperation with Police Forces tried to stop all traditional cafés from serving Qalyan (water pipe) to the customers. It should be noted that two general type of Qalyan have been available in such places: Traditional Qalyan which contains pure tobacco and dates back to several centuries ago, and relatively newer Fruit Qalyan which contains fruit-flavored tobacco. Officials of Health Ministry were determined to at least stop Fruit Qalyan, claiming that its tobacco is of a lower quality and the chemicals used for flavoring the tobacco are highly hazardous. By the way, this act was somehow associated with a broader plan aiming at banning public smoking.

Police forces warned all of the café owners to stop serving Qalyan (or any other kind of smoke) or they would be prosecuted. Some café owners tried to resist, who were finally fined and their shops were closed.

Since Qalyan was the main source of income for such cafés (which used to serve tea, Qalyan and few traditional snacks and foods), most of them experienced a rapid decrease of revenues so that many of them decided to close the shops.

Few weeks later, President Ahmadinejad directly ordered Ministry of State (who is in charge of Police Forces) to abolish the crack down. Since then Qalyan is again available. Yeah, that day was “the re-birth of café owners of Iran” as the below poster states. This poster is available in many traditional cafés, expressing the very thanks of café owners to “beloved, popular president” of Iran. It reads: “thank you, thank you!”