(MENAFN- Khaleej Times) Dubai Municipality has prepared the list of shisha shops which will be sent to the DED if they do not take corrective measures.
As many as 30 per cent of over 400 shisha shops in Dubai are facing closure if they do not take measures to abide by the federal anti-tobacco law.
A senior official of the Dubai Municipality’s Public Health and Safety Department told Khaleej Times that the department is sending a list of these shops according to their areas to the Department of Economic Development (DED) to cancel their licences.
“We have found that almost 30 per cent of the over 400 shisha cafes in Dubai do not abide by the specifications stipulated in the federal law” said Director of the Department Marwan Al Mohammed.
He said the department has prepared the list of shisha shops which will be sent to the DED if they do not take corrective measures.
“Most of these are small shisha cafes with areas of 500 to 600 sq ft which is very less for shisha cafes which as per the law should have 2000sqft” said Mohammed.
The list would be sent in batches according to the location of the shisha facilities. “We are targeting shisha café’s based on their areas because tomorrow it will be a problem if we close one shisha café and another one operating in the neighbourhood is doing the same mistake. So we are tackling them area-wise.”
The move is part of a crackdown on errant shisha café’s in Dubai for which the municipality had previously given ample deadlines to implement the provisions of the federal law.
While some shisha outlets have already shut down on their own when the crackdown began last month Mohammed said some others have sought time to regulate their status by finding some alternative arrangements.
“We will not ask for the closure of such shops. The ones that will be affected are the ones that have not bothered to do anything even after we imposed fines on them. Some of them might be planning to stop operations soon” he pointed out.
Serving shisha is one of the services offered in some shops. Mohammed said these outlets will be asked to stop the shisha service first. “If they do not comply we will request the DED to freeze their operation.
“Nobody will wish to work against the rules… We are flexible also giving some grace period for those businesses which want to correct their status as per the law.”
Apart from ensuring the specified size shisha cafés are also required to move out of residential areas and keep safe distance stipulated in the law from educational institutions homes and places of worship.
Shisha joints in malls and shopping centres in Dubai are also required to have only one entrance that would not be from inside the commercial buildings. The entrance to such shisha joints must be directly from the thoroughfares. — sajilakhaleejtimes.com