In 2015, city council chambers swelled with hundreds of Hookah Lounge supporters and detractors, there to shout down, up, and over each other as Seattle considered closures and regulation of the “after-hours lounges.” On the table was a bill from then-Mayor Ed Murray to completely shutter the doors of all Seattle hookah lounges.

Lounge owners and supporters claimed that the legislation was racially and ethnically targeted; Critics of the lounges countered that they were a primary culprit for health and public safety concerns—at best, a tobacco promoter, at worst a catalyst for criminality. City officials argued that hookah lounges had become magnets for violence, claiming that shuttering them would make streets safer and cut down on late-night shootings. But critics said the policy unfairly singled out businesses largely run by immigrants and people of color, deflecting attention from deeper issues driving gun violence, and casting broad suspicion on already marginalized communities in the process.

Supporters and critics alike carried their protests from the meeting hall to the stairways outside the chambers, forming opposing lines that faced each other and shouted their positions across the divide. The confrontation exposed generational and community rifts, and marked the apex of a dispute where race, class, community safety, and business interests collided.

In the end, the city backed down, and most hookah lounge owners were simply fined and issued warnings for violating state laws that prohibit smoking in public spaces and workplaces—regulations the Seattle lounges had attempted to sidestep by branding themselves as private clubs.

But that was nearly a decade and at least seven deaths ago. Contrast that with yesterday’s ho-hum city council meeting that saw a unanimous passage of a bill regulating after hours locations (6-0, with councilmembers Cathy Moore, Maritza Rivera, and Dan Strauss absent), a nearly empty chamber (I counted about a dozen people including city employees and media), and where, if you listened closely enough, you could hear a mite crapping on a roll of Charmin between city council member speeches.

The bill is a legislative response to a March 30 shooting in Capri Hookah Lounge’s parking lot in the wee hours that left two people dead. Following the shootings, the fifth at the location since the summertime, the lounge was declared a “chronic nuisance” in a letter Seattle Police Chief Shon Barnes sent to Capri’s owner. After being threatened with a $500 daily fine by the city for allegedly serving liquor without a license amongst other violations, Capri announced Monday that it was shutting down for good.

The bill also cited the deaths of five other people that took place in or around Hookah Lounges over the last decade, including Donnie Chin and Francisco Escatall.

Hookah lounges have been embroiled in public safety debates since at least 2005, when Washington voters approved Initiative 901, banning smoking in public spaces, including bars. Some lounges, often open later than traditional bars, found a workaround by identifying as “private clubs,” skirting the ban and becoming lightning rods of controversy ever since.

Critics of hookah lounges often paint them as tinderboxes for violence, claiming they draw in already-intoxicated patrons after bars close, an alleged recipe for trouble. They point to city data from last year showing more than 35 shootings tied to so-called “after-hours” clubs, with more than 800 rounds fired. But supporters push back, calling that narrative a problematic trope. For many, they say, these lounges are more than nightlife. They’re cultural hubs and community spaces for people who often have few others as they serve a largely Islamic clientele religiously prohibited from drinking.

Tuesday’s ordinance, introduced by councilmember Bob Kettle, representing Magnolia, Downtown, and South Lake Union (and three hookah lounges), sets stricter rules for after-hours nightlife lounges open between 2 and 6 a.m., restricting attendance to patrons 21 years or older, allowing law enforcement and city inspectors access during business hours, and prohibiting alcohol sales or consumption during those hours unless venues have an extended-hours liquor license. It also requires lounges to shut down entirely between 6 and 10 a.m., and makes lounge owners submit detailed written safety plans, including security protocols, emergency procedures, and staff training requirements.

With the intent of baking accountability into the bill, Councilmember Alexis Mercedes-Rink included an amendment that requires the City’s Finance and Administrative Services to submit an initial implementation plan by June 1, 2025, and to provide annual public reports on how the ordinance is being enforced. These yearly updates—due each December—must detail what enforcement actions have been taken and what outcomes they've produced.

The bill passed with a whisper.

Reactions from city elected officials—and those seeking to replace them—reflected the same energy that was in the room yesterday, though they ranged from celebratory to to skeptical.

“We have two of these after hours establishments in D2 now that Capri closed, and I’m tired of adding another name to the list of people who died,” says Mark Solomon, who represents South Seattle on the council. Solomon told The Stranger that the ordinance was a “long time coming” and that the bill brings Hookah lounges and other after hours establishments in line with standard regulatory practices. “This is not about targeting immigrant communities or POC establishments. This comes down to community safety for patrons and safety for folks in the neighborhood. We’re not in the business of closing down a business just to close it down.” Solomon says.

Joy Hollingsworth, who represents the Central District, says that the bill was less contentious than in previous years because it was developed with input from local business owners and community members.

“The reality is that late-night gun violence doesn’t just affect the neighborhoods in which they happen, it ripples across our entire city and undermines responsible business owners who are working hard to build a nightlife scene that is safe, vibrant, and sustainable. We owe it to them, and their patrons, to prioritize public safety to allow our city's nightlife to thrive,” says Hollingsworth.

Both Hollingsworth and Solomon represent districts that collectively experience higher incidents of gun violence than elsewhere in the city.

Eddie Lin, a candidate running to replace Solomon in D2 says he doesn’t believe this ordinance won’t reduce gun violence, though he would’ve voted for it.

“I'm deeply saddened and frustrated because I do not see our City rising to this moment with the urgency it requires,” says Lin. “People need and deserve safe places to gather and socialize, and so it's fair and necessary to regulate these businesses and require them to have meaningful safety plans in place.”

His fellow candidates struck similar tones.

“We need to stop the violence. There are ways to do that and the proposed legislation could be one tool in the toolbox,” says Adonis Duckworth, running in D2. “We shouldn't over regulate places that are already safe, but we can't allow shootings to keep happening at establishments that have a pattern of violence.”

Jamie Fackler, another candidate in the district race, struck a note of caution, saying he wants to see how it plays out. “The root cause of gun violence doesn't seem like it comes from hookah lounges or people who partake in using hookahs,” he says. “But I hope the legislation does what it's intended to do and doesn't harm small business owners in the process.”

City Attorney Ann Davison offered no such equivocation, practically doing verbal backflips in her gleeful statement celebrating the legislation’s passage. “I believe this tool will address the rise of place-specific gun violence caused by unlicensed venues. This legislation can’t come soon enough for our city as we look to save lives,” Davison’s statement read. 

Her opponents in this year’s city attorney race were much less effusive.

“This is a surface level response to a problem with deep roots,” says Rory O’Sullivan, a city attorney candidate, who was supportive of ordinance and Rinck’s amendment.

He cautioned against viewing this as a gun violence prevention victory through measures that he says largely impact a small number of businesses owned by people of color.

Nathan Rouse, who is also running against Davison, had a lukewarm response to the legislation.

“We’ve already seen with laws like SOAP and SODA that reactive legislation often fails to make us safer,” Rouse says. “If these measures prove effective at improving public safety, I will happily support them as City Attorney. This just can’t be another political move that looks tough on crime but does little to address the root causes.”

It’s hard not to reflect on the stark contrast between Tuesday’s City Council meeting and the one a decade ago and not ask: what changed? Has one narrative finally triumphed over the other? Were the detractors right all along? Did hookah lounges need to “clean up their act”? Or are they just the most convenient targets of blame in a city desperate to do something about a crisis with no easy fix? As a city, have we become so inundated, so emotionally and politically drained by the relentless crises of this country, that we’ve lost the capacity to confront the epidemic of gun violence with the depth and seriousness it demands? And so we’re left grasping for any solution, no matter how incomplete, just to feel like we’re doing something?

“People are tired, man. People are exhausted, I’ve been using that word more than ever,” says Cortez Charles, a youth violence prevention specialist and community organizer based in South Seattle.

Charles represents the paradox faced by many in the South End— folks who’ve stood on both sides of the hookah lounge debate, weighing community safety against cultural expression. In the end, he backed more regulation because it felt like the least harmful option in a system that persistently offers underresourced communities only a narrow set of imperfect choices.

“Our community is hurting, it’s been hurting. Lives are being lost. These regulations are in the best interest of our communities, but why are they focusing on these places, instead of building something more in our community?” Charles asks.

After ten years, all we seem left with is the same old questions.