Maple Observer - Owner of Vancouver’s only Persian hookah lounge fighting to keep his business

Vancouver’s last hookah lounge has six months before its doors must close, but the owner of Ahwaz Hookah House is determined to continue his business, which serves as a late-night third space for the Muslim community.

Abbas Abdiannia has been in a battle with the city for two decades to keep his business open. He says closing Ahwaz Hookah House would destroy Vancouver’s last and most historic piece of cultural infrastructure.

The same battles have been waged in Toronto and Winnipeg in the past five years.

“If they close my business I don’t know what to do,” Abdiannia said, adding the fight with the city has cost him $30,000. “Maybe if they can give me five years, I will be happy to close my business.”

Abdiannia founded Ahwaz Hookah House in June of 2006. A year later the City of Vancouver enacted a bylaw banning indoor smoking, which led to the first conflict. In 2014, the city amended the bylaw to include smoking hookah and Abdiannia contested the amendment in court. He was unsuccessful in a provincial court hearing, but he was given written permission to continue operating by the city’s licence inspector.

But the conflict with the city continued, and Abdiannia was back in court contesting the bylaw’s enforcement in December, 2025. Financially strained by two decades of legal action, Abdiannia attended the court case without a lawyer. The court decided the written permission from the licence inspector was insufficient and Abdiannia was given six months to close his hookah lounge.

“The city is trying to bully me after 20 years in business,” Abdiannia said. “If they believe in the bylaw, why did they allow me to be in business 20 years?”

Abdellah Mez, who came to Canada from Morocco, said he has been visiting the hookah lounge for more than 15 years.

“I like to come here to take time… it’s nice and quiet.” Mez said. “It will be bad if it shuts down.”

Abdiannia wants Ahwaz Hookah House to be grandfathered in because his business predates the city’s bylaw against indoor smoking. He said the neighbouring community of Burnaby has 12 hookah houses that are allowed to operate.

In an email to New Canadian Media, a city spokesperson wrote: “These regulations are in place to protect staff and patrons from exposure to second-hand smoke.”

Abdiannia said what keeps him going is cultural preservation.

“I grew up with my father; he smoked, everybody smoked,” said Abdianna, who was raised in Iran. “When we (Persians) were smoking hookah, the U.S. and Canada didn’t even exist.”

Abdiannia is hoping people sympathetic to his struggle will contact the Vancouver mayor and the city’s bylaw enforcement office to request that Ahwaz Hookah House be exempted, as is the case in Burnaby. After 20 years of fighting for his business, Abdiannia says there’s no point stopping now.