"I Got Served"

"I Got Served"

Wisps of curling, white smoke caress my wind-chafed cheeks as I make my way through the dimly lit hookah lounge. While Angela talks to the waitress, I deftly throw my shoulders back and do my best to look like I’m a confident college student eagerly anticipating my usual late Saturday night smoke. To my great relief and surprise, nobody suspiciously requests to inspect my nonexistent ID. Half an hour later, I can still scarcely believe I haven’t been caught yet. The waitress rattles off the hookah flavors of the day. “Today, it’s either pink lemonade or Skittles.” I grimace slightly at the odd flavors, but still tell her, “Let’s have Skittles. I love candy.” I fight a grin when she actually takes my order. Would she be horrified to know that she just willingly decided to serve tobacco to a sixteen-year-old?

According to the Rhode Island General Laws, it is illegal for anyone under the age of eighteen to smoke, chew, or possess tobacco. Unfortunately, it seems this law is almost embarrassingly easy to break through the lesser-known avenue of hookah bars. I found ordering tobacco at two different hookah lounges in the East Side just as effortless as ordering a cheeseburger at a McDonald’s drive-thru. If it was this simple for me to do, what about other, more determined teenagers? With at least four, conveniently accessible hookah lounges in Providence alone, underage smoking could very well be a rampant, unchecked problem.

From the police’s perspective, underage hookah smoking poses no problem. “They’ve never given us any trouble,” says Brook Street Substation’s Lieutenant John Ryan. With no prior neighborhood complaints or concerns expressed and the major clientele seemingly being in their twenties and thirties, the police are of the opinion that there is no need for an active investigation into underage hookah smoking. “We never get any calls for any disturbances or anyone underage,” says Officer Mac Field in response to our inquiry on the Meeting Street hookah bars, “The only time I’ve been in there was to introduce myself to the owner.”

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Contrary to popular opinion, hookah smoking is not safer than cigarette smoking. In fact, with its higher nicotine levels due to its unfiltered tobacco, hookah is actually moreaddictive. In addition to causing lung cancer, smoking through a waterpipe can lead to cancers of the stomach, esophagus, and the lower lip. Other health risks are also magnified through the inhalation of dangerous chemicals, such as carbon monoxide, that result from the burning of wood cinders and charcoal. However, despite its obvious health risks, hookah remains a hot commodity among many young teens with its “sweetened” tobacco attracting many underage smokers.

“We check everyone’s ID, regardless of how old they look and whether or not they come in groups,” is what a Byblos employee confidently told me two days before I went into their establishment and successfully ordered a Skittles hookah. He also informed me that they were very strict about carding underage smokers, who apparently absolutely never, ever manage to successfully step one foot into their hookah lounge. Imagine my surprise and shock when I was able to not only step both feet into their hookah bar, but also order hookah without being asked for my ID. Even after we exited the hookah lounge, I was still taken aback by how reality diverged completely from the employee’s assertive assurances that it wasn’t possible for underage teens to sneak in.

“Does anyone know where I could find hookah bars around Thayer Street?” When I asked that question, I wasn’t really expecting to receive any answers from my classmates. I was taken aback when many of them said they did know where the hookah bars were and could even give me detailed instructions to their locations. Turns out, quite a few of them had hung out in the lounges in the past. Initially, I thought that they were extremely lucky they weren’t caught all these times. But after going to the bars and ordering tobacco myself, it was clear that we teenagers didn’t have to be lucky to get in. All any of us had to do was hand over a twenty and we’d be set. Just like other underage smokers out there looking for a quick drag.