Sumter Street strollers passing by The Spur Stop on weekend evenings are likely to catch an aromatic whiff of hookah smoke. Crowds of mostly young people, many students at USC, have been gathering on the intimate porch adjacent to the convenience store to smoke the traditional Middle Eastern water pipe for over a year.

The Spur Stop’s Laura Moran began the tradition at the suggestion of her Turkish boyfriend Ziya. They named the porch Nargile Hane, loosely translated in Turkish means “hookah house.” “It’s a very social activity,” she said. “We have one at home. It’s very relaxing.”

Now Moran, with the help of partner and Turkey native Fatih Ozgen, plans to open an indoor version of Nargile Hane above the convenience store in January. The 1,100 square foot space will feature two smoking rooms connected by a small bar area.

In order to sidestep Columbia’s indoor smoking ban, Nargile Hane will be a member’s only private club. “We will charge a small fee,” Moran said. “We want to do an introductory one semester fee that would expand to a year.”

Fatih Ozgen Currently, hookah smokers who gather on the Nargile Hane porch pay about $13 for a hookah, which lasts for one hour. The hookah has four main parts – a water–filled base, a bowl that rests on top and is filled with tobacco, a pipe that runs from the bowl into the water, and a flexible hose that reaches into the open air space above the water in the base.

The tobacco is placed in the bowl, which at Nargile Hane is covered in punctured foil. The tradition varies from culture to culture – and a hot coal is laid on top. When the smoker inhales through the flexible hose, the smoke passes down into the water and up to the smoker who then exhales.

Turkish Hookah “It is often smoked after a big meal,” Ozgen said as he methodically separated the gooey tobacco and placed it into the bowl while preparing a hookah. “It is supposed to aid in digestion.”

The tobacco, which is soaked in molasses, comes in an endless variety of flavors from banana to plum and pistachio. Smoking a hookah at Nargile Hane is a social activity with people often sharing hookahs via removable plastic mouthpieces.

“It’s like a big family,” frequent customer and USC junior Zach Lamb said. “It’s really more of a social thing for me. I get a lot of work done here.”

Enthusiasts claim that smoking via a hookah is not as unhealthy as cigars or cigarettes because the tobacco is more pure and passes through the water first before reaching the smoker’s lungs. However, Mayo Clinic internist Edward C. Rosenow refutes this claim on the organization’s website. “According to a World Health Organization advisory, a typical one–hour session of hookah smoking exposes the user to 100 to 200 times the volume of smoke inhaled from a single cigarette … tobacco smoke still contains high levels of toxic compounds, including carbon monoxide, heavy metals, and cancer-causing chemicals (carcinogens).”

Zach Lamb Prior to the smoking ban, several establishments offered hookah smoking indoors. When it opens, Nargile Hane will be one of the first to offer it again.

“It will be a very chill atmosphere,” Ozgen said.