Friday, October 28, 2005

Here at UC Berkeley, we are told day in and day out that we are the best, the cream of the crop, the top of the line. I think it's safe to say that the aforementioned is a proven scientific fact. As such, it is only logical that we deserve the best.

Yet the best is not what we are getting. It has recently come to my attention that the fair citizens of this pristine university are missing out. We are being deprived of a certain leisure activity that guarantees good times all around, one we know we all want and surely need. I say it's high time that a hookah bar be established in the city of Berkeley.

In case you've been living under a rock since you hit puberty, the hookah is a traditional device from the Middle East and Asia that is used for smoking flavored tobacco. The most commonly smoked substance is a mixture of tobacco with either honey, molasses, or a semi-dried fruit. Hookah comes in all sorts of tasty flavors, such as mango, cappuccino or mint. Specifics aside, hookah is great for socializing, relaxing and above all looking cool in front of others. If you don't believe me, just think back to the caterpillar from Disney's Alice in Wonderland. He was blue and he smoked hookah. I don't think there's a better argument than that.

UC Berkeley claims to be on the cutting edge of pretty much every aspect of life, yet here we are lagging behind the times. We've even fallen behind UCLA, and that's just embarrassing. While hanging out in lower Westwood over the summer, I came across a handful of hookah bars less than a mile away from campus, without even trying to find one. Plus, they all had lines going out the door. Surely the city of Berkeley wouldn't mind the business.

Shisha bars, as they are also known, benefit not just the city of Berkeley, but the students as well. College is by definition one of the most exciting times of our lives, but some students don't have a friend who's 21 and can hook them up with booze. It's hard to withstand the hurt and rejection and emotional damage felt when 21-and-older friends hit up the bars on a Thursday night, and you must instead keep Malcolm in the Middle company. Hookah bars would provide an instant solution for that lonely underage crowd, because you only have to be 18 to hookah. Bars would probably have fewer underage people to deal with, fewer fake IDs to confiscate and less jailbait trying to seduce the bouncer into letting them in.

That's not to say you couldn't find a single place in the entire Bay Area to satisfy your craving for a nice smoke. San Francisco boasts a number of these joints, including the Excelsior Club and the Mediterranean Cafe. And the city's great, but it would be fabulous if we had one of these nifty little joints a bit closer to home.

Believe it or not, hookah is widely believed to be healthier than smoking cigarettes. While slightly less healthy than a trip to the RSF, shisha allows you to take in more smoke with fewer carcinogens. This is because the tobacco is heated, not burned. Besides, college students are busy people with places to go and things to do. We need to cut corners wherever we can. If a hookah bar will allow us to increase our smoke intake while decreasing the amount of time we must sacrifice, then there's just no downside. It's simple economics, and we all know how pointless it is to try to argue with economics.

Now that I have convinced you with my fine rhetoric and concrete scientific facts, the only question that remains is where we could establish this great Mecca of tobacco. Personally, I think the city of Berkeley has plenty of space to offer for a hookah bar. I know many would agree that there are tons of places close to campus that really don't deserve to exist. One of the first things I learned as a clueless freshman, aside from how to work a coin-operated washer, was to stay the hell away from that god-awful Chinese food restaurant off of Channing. Come on now, a place that advertises a whole meal for a buck thirty-five just has to be hazardous to your health. And then there's that cheap imitation of Yogurt Park across from Sather Lane.

I don't think any of these places would be sorely missed, and this would be a much better employment of space. And one that could be blackening our lungs, at that. Clearly it's a win-win situation for everyone. If you don't believe me, just ask your econ professor.