AHS orders Calgary restaurant to stop offering shisha services during COVID-19 pandemic

Alberta Health Services ordered a Calgary restaurant to close shisha services during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a health enforcement order dated June 24.

Conditions at Ishtar Restaurant, located at 4338 Macleod Trail S.W., could have been dangerous to public health or spread disease by contravening an order by Alberta’s chief medical officer of health.

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As it stands, according to the Alberta government, hookah lounges can only serve food and drink.

“The operator was providing shisha service to the public as a patron was smoking shisha in the dining room,” the AHS order said.

An AHS executive officer directed Ishtar Restaurant owners Bashar Marqas and Sawsan Marqas to immediately close shisha, hookah and water pipe services to the public, explaining that those offerings will remain closed until they are told otherwise by AHS.