Proposed rules to regulate argileh licence renewals — health official

AMMAN — The Health Ministry is awaiting the Cabinet’s endorsement of a set of rules that regulate licence renewals for cafés and outlets that serve argileh, a ministry official said on Sunday.

Fatima Khalifeh, head of the ministry’s tobacco control department, said a steering committee with representatives from the concerned institutions has already finalised its recommendations for this purpose.

She said the recommendations include preventing those who are under the age of 18 from entering any place that serves argileh or even allows any type of tobacco.

“Even if those children are accompanied by others who are older than 18, they are not allowed to enter these places,” Khalifeh told The Jordan Times.

Another recommendation is to designate a space for non-smokers at restaurants serving argileh that should be completely separated from the smoking area, she said.

Khalifeh added that based on the recommendations, there should be an air filtering system to clean the polluted indoor air of a smoking room.

However, the challenge that might face the implementation of these recommendations once they are endorsed is identifying the authorised party to ensure that the targeted outlets abide by these regulations, according to Khalifeh. 

She noted that the Greater Amman Municipality (GAM) is only authorised to renew licences. 

In a letter sent to the Health Ministry, the municipality said it is not authorised to monitor health standards related to allowing argileh smoking.

“The ministry cannot work alone and other parties should be involved to help us monitor the implementation of these regulations,” Khalifeh said.

In February, GAM announced that it will not issue or renew any licences for cafés serving argileh, citing a Health Ministry request to enforce the Public Health Law, which prohibits smoking in public places.

The application of the law was supposed to go into effect April 1, since all licences issued to restaurants and cafés that offer argileh were due to expire by March 31.

Following protests by café and restaurant owners, GAM revisited its decision and decided to only stop issuing new licences for serving argileh at cafés and started receiving applications for licence renewals last Wednesday.

The municipality said the applications are only for renewals and not for new licences.

The Public Health Law was enforced in the Kingdom’s shopping malls and Queen Alia International Airport in March 2009, and in fast-food restaurants in June of the same year.

A Cabinet decision prohibiting smoking in ministries and public institutions went into force May 25, 2010.

According to the law, smoking is prohibited in hospitals, healthcare centres, schools, cinemas, theatres, libraries, museums, public and non-governmental buildings, public transport vehicles, airports, closed playgrounds, lecture halls and any other location to be determined by the health minister.