Dec 14 2009
Hookah Bar Owner Fights for Freedom
The owner of a Chapel Hill hookah bar says he will defy the state’s new smoking ban that has ensnared his business but exempted other types of smoking establishments. Adam Bliss, owner of Hookah Bliss, believes the ban is discriminatory. He will continue to sell hookahs and alcohol beginning Jan. 2, the day it becomes illegal to smoke in most North Carolina bars and restaurants.
Good for you, Mr. Bliss. I hope many other private business owners follow your lead and tell the nanny-state assholes in Raleigh to take their bill and shove it.
Failure to comply may bring penalties. Tom Konsler, Orange County’s environmental health director, expects enforcement to be complaint-driven. “We’re hoping not to test that,” Konsler said. Konsler said the county is aware of Bliss and that a representative will visit him in the next week or two to discuss his plans.
I hope Mr. Bliss takes a hookah pipe and shoves it up up Mr. Konsler’s ass when he shows up. Mr. Bliss is a private business owner with private customers who make their own decisions to buy his legal product.
Are you a supporter of this bill? Well, here’s what you’ve done:
Bliss said he faced three choices: continue operating as usual, stop selling alcohol to fit the definition of a tobacco shop rather than a bar, or close his doors altogether.
Since alcohol accounts for 20 to 25 percent of his sales, eliminating beer would send the bar into a nosedive it might not survive. Closing the doors of his 2 ½-year-old business would devastate Bliss. At risk is roughly $70,000 in cash invested or still owed. Giving up would also put him on the unemployment line. Half a dozen part-time employees would join him there.
Wow! Nice job government! You’ve done it again. Thank God you’re here to protect us from the scourge of free enterprise and hookahs!
And you know who else gets a shout out? One of this page’s favorite politicians, St. Sen. Ellie Kinnaird. We love Ellie here at CPO, and this is one of the reasons why:
Bliss thought he’d won the support of Sen. Ellie Kinnaird, D-Orange. He said he worked with her assistant to create an exemption [for hookah bars]. On the evening the bill passed the Senate, Kinnaird called and told him she had not introduced the exemption at the request of a sponsor.
Bliss was stunned. He told her she was, in effect, closing down a viable business. Kinnaird’s response wasn’t what he wanted to hear. “This is as close to a quote as I can [recall] — ‘I know it will be difficult.’
“I said, ma’am, you don’t know anything. You’re sitting in an office paid for by people like me and you’re telling me you’re going to take my business away — tough noogies?”
Kinnaird stands by her support of the smoking ban. She said she tried hard to help Bliss, knowing he’d put his life savings and vision into the business. “But when I went to the sponsor of the bill, Dr. [William] Purcell [D-Anson], he asked me not to put it in because he said it would weaken the bill.”
Aren’t you all glad smart people like Ellie Kinaird are in Raleigh making decisions for you? Don’t you wish you could turn over more of your life choices to her? After all, she’s been elected to stuff- that makes her super smart. Way smarter than you and some lame business owner trying to make a living.
The next time I’m in Chapel Hill I’m stopping in at Hookah Bliss to give Mr. Bliss some of my business. Please do the same.
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