Sharonville passed its first ordinance regulating hookah lounges, establishing closing times, permitting requirements and operational guidelines for businesses that had previously operated without specific oversight in the city' s code.For 14 years, Sahara Hookah Lounge has been a fixture in Sharonville. Now, for the first time, it will operate under the new city regulations.The ordinance was passed as an emergency measure at the end of February to get rules in place before warmer months bring increased activity.Until now, hookah lounges existed in what city officials describe as a regulatory gray zone."These hookah bars were essentially unregulated, and so they could have stayed open 24 hours a day. They could have engaged in all kinds of behaviors for which there weren't ordinances to cover," said Mike Mathis, the city's hotel liaison who also does regulatory work in collaboration with the police department.That changed after the city began noticing a rise in disturbances in the late summer and started connecting the dots to what was happening in Cincinnati.WATCH: Sharonville passes first hookah lounge regulatory ordinance City passes hookah lounge regulations amid safety concernsAs Cincinnati cracked down on its own hookah lounges, many of those patrons needed somewhere else to go. Sahara, which had been staying open until as late as 4:30 a.m., became that destination for some.Kyra Al Hassan, a server at Sahara, told city council in January that the shift was noticeable."It started around the time when the hookah lounges in downtown Cincinnati started to close down. And a lot of their businesses started to come to us," Al Hassan said.Mathis said the pattern was hard to ignore."If you're going to frequent a hookah establishment and Cincinnati closes theirs down at midnight, then you're going to go to where you can go. Our hookah bar was staying until like four o'clock in the morning, and so that's pretty late, and it allowed a lot of traffic to come out that way," Mathis said.Jim Lukas, Sharonville's safety services director, said the nature of the incidents made it clear the city needed to act."We started seeing an uptick late summer, probably, and just more domestic disorderly conduct, fights, assaults, that type of thing. And nobody wants to see that. We don't want to be the next downtown Cincinnati or Austin, Texas," Lukas said.Health and fire inspectors had also flagged violations at the lounge, Mathis said. A neighboring business reported finding trash along its property lines in the mornings after Sahara closed. And while Sahara did not sell alcohol, customers had been allowed to bring their own.Rather than waiting for conditions to worsen, Mathis said the city chose to get ahead of it."We reacted to it proactively before any kind of serious issues happened, to make sure we had regulations in place that would protect the community," Mathis said.City officials met with Sahara staff in the fall. Those conversations, combined with input from health, fire and law enforcement, led to a draft ordinance that was shared with the lounge before it ever reached a council vote.At a January council meeting, Sahara owner Hussein Al Shafee, along with several staff members and building owner Naja Thai, came to address the proposal directly. Al Shafee said he supported the regulations with one exception."I agree with all the points. Just one point is going to be so hard for me like the time, because all my business is between 10 p.m. and 1:30 a.m.," Al Shafee said.The original draft mirrored Cincinnati's approach and called for a midnight closing time. Al Shafee asked for 2:30 a.m. the same hour the bar next door stops serving. Council agreed."Hey, bars can stay up until 2:30. We'll keep the hookah lounge up till 2:30," Mathis said.Lukas said the result reflects what the process was always meant to achieve."I think this is a great compromise for the community safety and the hookah lounge in general," Lukas said.The ordinance goes beyond closing times. Hookah lounges must now obtain a permit to operate a requirement Mathis called the most significant piece of the new law.The permit process gives the city the ability to deny or object to a license if a business is not operating safely, similar to how the city can challenge a bar's liquor permit renewal.Additional requirements include a prohibition on anyone under 21, a ban on alcohol on the premises, mandatory camera systems accessible to law enforcement, zoning restrictions that keep hookah lounges away from schools and other designated areas and a requirement to clean the parking lot within two hours of closing.Al Shafee agreed to allow law enforcement to enter and verify no alcohol is being sold and told council the lounge would no longer permit customers to bring their own.Manager Kareem Fami told council the lounge already had security measures in place, including three staff members on duty during busy weekend hours, ID checks and bag searches at entry and a strict no-tolerance policy on weapons and illegal substances. Security footage has been shared with authorities when needed, he said.Both Lukas and Mathis said they were struck by how constructively Sahara engaged throughout the process."They did not take an antagonistic approach, either in the informal meetings that the police department had or with the draft ordinance that we gave them. They looked at it, they had some comments back and forth, and ultimately, we wound up with a good resolution," Lukas said.Looking ahead, Mathis said the ordinance is built to accommodate growth. If additional hookah lounges open in Sharonville a possibility as the industry grows in popularity they would be subject to the same permitting requirements and operational rules.This story was reported on-air by a journalist and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy. ...read more read less