State legislators have cast a skeptical eye toward a Welch Avenue business after discovering a loophole in the Iowa code regarding the licensing of tobacco retailers.

Although all tobacco is prohibited for those under 18, the current code considers cigarettes separate from other types of tobacco. Retailers selling cigarettes are required to obtain a cigarette retail permit. Those who do not sell cigarettes, but do sell other tobacco products such as chewing tobacco, are not required to have a cigarette retail permit and are not subject to the compliance checks.

The Chicha Shack, 114 Welch Ave., a hookah bar, is one such retailer not required to have a cigarette retail permit. Believed to be the first such establishment in Iowa, the Chicha Shack offers a place for people to gather and smoke fruit-flavored tobacco from a Turkish water pipe known as a hookah or nargile.

The hookah has been a long-standing tradition in the Middle East, and smoking a hookah can be done in a number of public places there such as hotels, restaurants and public parks, according to Mohamed Ali, owner of the Chicha Shack.

Ali, senior in management information systems, said he wanted to create a place where “people can sit down, relax and smoke.”

By choosing the location on Welch Avenue, Ali said he wanted to draw from the university students without having to worry about minors trying to smoke, although he still checks IDs.

Minors are allowed to be in the Chicha Shack to eat or drink, but they are not allowed to smoke in the establishment.

Rep. Kevin McCarthy, D-Des Moines, the ranking member of the House Public Safety Committee, said he is working with the committee’s chairman, Rep. Clel Baudler, R-Greenfield, and representatives from the tobacco industry to create legislation requiring a general tobacco sales permit for any tobacco retailer that would make them subject to the same compliance checks and penalties to which cigarette retail permit holders are currently held.

McCarthy said the intent is not to punish anyone but to instead close the loophole and give the state a means to ensure retailers are not selling to minors.

Currently, the Iowa Code puts the regulations regarding sales of cigarettes to minors in the revenue chapter and not in a criminal law chapter.

He said the bill should be introduced within the next few weeks for the creation of a general tobacco retail permit that would create a standardized method to conduct compliance checks and penalties for all tobacco retailers, not just those with a cigarette retail permit.

If the new permit is created, Ali would be required to purchase it to continue operating the Chicha Shack.