Earlier this year I chronicled the saga of Adam Bliss, the owner of Chapel Hill hookah bar Hookah Bliss, in his effort to fight the state’s ban on smoking in bars and restaurants. He fought hard but eventually had to close the shop after dwindling sales in a post-ban era left him unable to pay property taxes.
The Independent Weekly reports that Hookah Bliss has been replaced by — get this — a head shop. (emphasis is mine)
Weeks later, a “Grand Opening” banner flaps in the breeze at Smoke Rings, new to town but not to the area, with stores in Raleigh and Greensboro. Ornate water pipes fill four cases along the wall. Pipes abound. There are hookahs and shisha for sale, too.
“I find it just ironic as hell; that’s the most polite thing I can say about it is, ‘Oh yeah, head shops are OK, but apparently, legitimate hookah bars were not’,” Bliss says. “I don’t want to dump on head shops, because I know guys who run head shops, too, and I think they should be allowed, but it’s kind of an ironic twist.”
As for Adam, thankfully he’s found a job after losing his business and won’t have to pay the fines he’d accrued to the county.
Bliss, the most outspoken opponent of the ban, was out of work for more than a month. He was saddled with debt from his first, and perhaps last, business, when he got a job working for the family of one of his former Hookah employees.
He now retrieves dead bodies from hospitals and dresses them for funerals. He’s working toward an embalming license.
