Students get hooked on Hukas

Anthony Lonetree, Star Tribune

The word on the street had been that hukas were an underground phenomenon, but there they were, coals lit and hoses ready, atop patio tables at Nochee in downtown Minneapolis.

As seats filled, boxes of flavored tobacco were emptied, and organizers said there was no time to talk: "We have to host a party," said Sasha Patel, 26.

The huka (pronounced WHOOK-ah or WHO-ka) is in the midst of a revival among college students and -- in Patel's words -- among 21- to 35-year-olds "with money to spend." A Dinkytown head shop stocks the smoking devices in abundance. A convenience store farther along 4th Street near the University of Minnesota campus rents them.

But in many local communities, if you aim to try a few puffs of mango-flavored tobacco or enjoy the communal ambience of the huka-sharing experience other than at a home, you will have to step outside with the cigarette smokers -- and, in the case of the Saturday night events at Nochee, wait until the spring to do it.

A Minneapolis smoking ban stands in the way of any local introduction of the indoor huka lounge, a popular nightlife option on the East and West Coasts, as well as near college campuses in Ames, Iowa, and Madison, Wis., and Milwaukee. In Madison, a new smoking ban has nearly killed off that city's first huka lounge.

Forcing huka smokers out in the cold is wrong, said Sabi Atteyih, owner of the Casbah Restaurant and Lounge in Madison, and not just for economic reasons. At his lounge, the huka brought together Muslim, Jewish and Christian people, he said. At one time, he even considered launching a "hukas and Not Bazookas" campaign.

"But I thought it would be too righteous of us," he added.

Locally, indoor lounges are operating in Columbia Heights and Spring Lake Park, where they are referred to as "shisha lounges," for the flavored tobacco used. But they are far from campus and, apparently, at least in the case of Pyramids Cafe in Columbia Heights, the domain of older Middle Eastern men.

Said Mohammed Aaser, a University of Minnesota student who debated opening a lounge in Stadium Village: "When it is in Columbia Heights, it's Arabic. When it is on campus, it's global, it's chic."

But while Aaser is well-versed on the allure of the huka -- it is great for first dates, he said -- he was of limited assistance in steering a reporter to people who might actually be using them: "It is underground," he said, referring to the local smoking bans. "And it has to be."

Clearing the air

Another reason for the huka's low public profile may be its association with drug use. In "Alice's Adventures In Wonderland," Alice's encounter with the huka-smoking caterpillar is, after all, weird, and, as Jefferson Airplane proved with "White Rabbit," the stuff of psychedelic anthems.

huka smokers who professed a fondness for flavored tobaccos all said that among the first questions they are asked when approached is: "So, what are you smoking?"

But Steve Johnson, deputy chief of the University of Minnesota Police, said last week that huka popularity has not translated into any surge in on-campus drug crimes.

And a Boynton Health Service survey this spring revealed that marijuana use among the university's undergraduate students was relatively unchanged from two years ago, with 17 percent saying they'd used the drug in the past 30 days, said spokesman Dave Golden.

Golden added that the survey posed no questions about hukas, but that it might not be a bad idea to add such a query. Both Golden and Johnson were unaware of the huka trend, despite a full-page story in the campus paper.

For Johnson, hukas instead summoned memories of the 1970s-era poster of the Marx Brothers that showed Harpo and Chico smoking and Groucho with a pipe stem in his ear.

The Minnesota Daily story, however, prompted Bob Moffitt, spokesman for the American Lung Association, to write a letter making clear that a huka's cooling action doesn't make it a harmless smoking device.

"We haven't found a safe way to smoke tobacco," Moffitt said later.

Sukkah huka

On Oct. 1, the last Nochee party of the year picked up steam just before midnight. In the end, however, as busy as it seemed, it'd be a somewhat slow night, relatively speaking, said Joseph Thames, a senior at the university and a Saturday night regular. Typically, he said, the patio is jammed and the crowd diverse -- "all colors of faces," he said.

The huka night organizers -- Patel, Rudy Nautiyal, 22, and Joe Thomas, 22 -- said they decided to suspend operations until the spring rather than hit a stretch of cold weather and see the event lose its charm.

But Nautiyal, who like Thomas is a student at the university, said there also was a chance they could move indoors somewhere in Ramsey County, where there is only a partial smoking ban.

The aim of the huka nights, Patel said -- more than once -- was to take nightlife "to a new level."

It would be a more traditional event, hosted Thursday night by the Friends of Israel at the University of Minnesota, that would bring the huka back into the public eye -- to the enjoyment of students and others.

For the holiday of Sukkot, the Friends of Israel erected a wooden structure and invited the university community to join the group in smoking hukas and listening to the sounds of an Israeli drum.

It was the first time Rachel Seltz, 22, of Minneapolis, would try the huka, and she approached it like a swimmer diving into cold water.

"Here I go," she said.

She took a puff.

"This is good stuff."

She paused.

"Yeah, it's real good."