A University of Massachusetts graduate student says he might revive his idea of opening a "hookah lounge" in the Vermont town of Brattleboro where people would be able to smoke herbal tobacco.
Doctoral student Mohammed Elghoul had considered opening a hookah lounge in the Bay State, but local health boards there turned him down.
So Elghoul took his business idea to Vermont where he found what seemed to be an ideal location in the Brooks House Mall on Main Street in Brattleboro, but the courts ruled it would violate Vermont’s no-smoking laws.
But Rhonda Williams, chief of tobacco for the state of Vermont, said "herbal tobacco" reformulated to remove the actual tobacco, may be smoked in indoor public spaces such as a hookah lounge. So Elghoul says he might try again.