Gurgaon district administration enforced Section 144 of the CrPC on Monday to ban hookah bars in the city. As per orders, no hookah bar can operate within city premises and those already functional will be shut down. The move is part of larger plan to make Haryana a nicotine-free state, and the Food and Drug Authority (FDA) has been raiding hookah bars across the state to gather samples of nicotine content in the hookahs served here. The ban was enforced by Deputy Commissioner P C Meena. According to the order, almost all the bars were found serving tobacco molasses containing nicotine. Meena told Newsline that the bars are creating health hazards. “Most of the samples collected show presence of nicotine beyond permissible limits. The FDA has been taking samples, but that takes a lot of time. That is why the ban has been put in place with immediate effect,” he said. The order has been sent to police and health authorities for strict compliance, a source said. Legal action has been planned against violators of the ban, an official said. In October, FDA had raided 28 hookah bars in seven districts and collected 77 samples. In Gurgaon, seven hookah bars were raided and eight samples were taken. Raids were also conducted in Faridabad, Rohtak, Jhajjar, Hisar, Panchkula and Panipat. The raids came after a direction from Punjab and Haryana High Court, issued on the basis of a petition filed by NGO ‘Burning Brain Society’. FDA also found that none of the manufacturers of the products seized from hookah bars had drug manufacturing licences, which is mandatory under Section 18(C) of Drug and Cosmetics Act. Owner of DLF Phase IV-based Purple Bar and Hookah Lounge Prashant Karan said, “Why ban it (only) here. It should be banned everywhere then. Ninety per cent of our business will be affected. We use the costliest flavours available in the market because it has 0.05 per cent nicotine in it. We had heard that they will take samples, which they can.”