Property Rights Victory for Hookah Lounge
December 31st, 2008 | by Brian Costin Published in Blog, Property Rights, Smoking Bans
In a year-end local news wrap-up, the Daily Herald mentioned a story about the Arabian Nights Hookah Lounge in Schaumburg.
“Yasmina Nader and Mena Abadir, co-owners of Arabian Nights, a new hookah lounge in Schaumburg, unintentionally helped clarify a gray area of the state’s indoor smoking ban when they applied for an entertainment license last winter.
They wanted to retain the cultural aspects of hookah lounges, especially live music.”
Unfortunately, state and local laws prevented them from doing so.
“But the Jan. 1 law prohibited smoking everywhere except designated smoking businesses and officials first concluded the lounges would no longer be “smoking only” businesses with entertainment.”
The owners of Arabian Nights Hookah Lounge went to the Village of Schaumburg and appealed for the rights to have entertainment at their establishment. The Schaumburg Village board voted 3-3 in their petition to have entertainment.
“It came down to Mayor Al Larson having to break the trustees’ tie – and permit the music to play.”
Larson made the right decision by respecting the cultural and property rights of the owners of Arabian Nights Hookah Lounge by allowing live entertainment.
If you are a fan of Hookah Lounges or property rights in Schaumburg this was a major victory in 2008. It helps combat the lost customers due to the 2008 Cook County sales taxes hike that brought the sales tax rate up to 10% in Schaumburg. We now have the dubious distinction of having the second highest sales tax rate in the U.S.A.!
But the fight is not over. Hookah Lounge owners in Schaumburg have expressed interest in serving food to their customers as well. Let’s hope that we can make significant progress on that front in 2009.
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