The City of Ottawa bylaw, as it relates to “Water Pipes in Public Places and Work Places” which prohibits the use of water pipes (better known as hookahs) in enclosed public places, workplaces, outdoor restaurant and bar patios came into effect on December 1st, 2016.

Despite the supposed official bylaw reinforcement which reportedly started in April 2017, the City of Ottawa has been grotesquely asymmetrical in its' implementation of the law — bordering on biased unilateral threats of reprisal on some businesses from even operating, while casually fining other businesses and letting the rest operate freely without consequence.

Such inconsistencies violate the integrity of healthy competition within the private sector (predominately in the areas of cafés, lounges and restaurants) by arbitrarily providing some businesses with an unfair competitive advantage over others.

We therefore call upon the City of Ottawa to make a formal commitment to a level playing-field by virtue of adhering to one of the following proposals:

1.  Allow all designated Hookah-smoking spaces to operate freely within safely segregated enclosures that protect the health & safety of non-smokers outside the vicinity, while allowing hookah-users to exercise their own discretion, free-will and cultural expression.

OR

2. Fully enforce the law and outright stop all businesses from engaging in this practice without the leniency of fines that either fail to dis-incentivize highly profitable lounges, or downright encourage less profitable outlets to seek financial loopholes — namely, by filing for bankruptcy continually under different incorporated entities in order to avert paying any fines (this would also mean that jurisdictional involvement would be required at Federal and Provincial levels).