A hookah bar owner says if councillors decide to ban indoor shisha smoking his shop and others will be forced to close.
Council won't make a decision for a few weeks, but Farouk Eljurdi, the owner of Chateau Beirut, is worried.
"We keep talking, you know, and tell all the stories and what’s happened; now we talking about the city … what to do."
The city, concerned about secondhand smoking, wants to add shisha to the smoking bylaw that banned tobacco in restaurants and bars more than a decade ago.
Last year, Eljurdi says at the city's request, he installed a new ventilation system and closed Chateau Beirut during construction.
"It cost me $150,000 that five months."
Ward 3 Councillor Jon Dziadyk opposes the shisha ban. Many of Edmonton's 44 hookah bars are in his ward.
"I think that in a city of a million people we should have establishments like this. If you don’t smoke shisha, don’t go to these places," Dziadyk said.
If passed, the shisha ban would go in effect next July.
With files from CTV News Edmonton's Jeremy Thompson
