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Lounge set to smoke out competition

January 18, 2012

East Lansing already is home to one hookah lounge, but that doesn’t worry Kenny Shukeir, the owner of SIX Lounge Hookah & Smoke Shop, 400 Albert Ave.

Shukeir will get to see how his new business fares when the lounge opens its doors within the next week. The new hookah lounge, slated to open at the former site of East Lansing’s Secretary of State office, should open Monday at the latest, he said.

Shukeir hopes it will be open Friday, but employees might need additional time to move in equipment and accessories, he said.

The lounge will feature flavored hookah tobacco for smoking as well as cigars, smoking pipes and accessories for sale, but the location is not allowed to sell food under Michigan’s Smoke-Free Air Law, which went into effect May 1, 2010.

So far, the lounge has passed all of its city inspections, Shukeir said.

Prices run from $13 for a one-person serving of hookah to $7 a person for five or more people splitting two hookahs, according to the location’s Facebook page.

When it opens, Shukeir said the lounge will operate from noon to 3 a.m. seven days a week.

Shukeir also operates a SIX Lounge in Mount Pleasant, Mich. East Lansing has been targeted for about four years as a potential location for the business to expand, Shukeir said.

On an average day and even without food service, the Mount Pleasant location draws about 250 customers who come in to smoke hookah tobacco, he said.

But in East Lansing, Shukeir said he expects business to exceed those figures.

“The atmosphere for that kind of business — that’s what makes us want to expand,” he said. “Our name is good, and our company is different than any other.”

The owner of East Lansing’s other hookah lounge, Blue Midnight Hookah Lounge, 330 Albert Ave., declined to comment.

Civil engineering freshman Michael Keller said there is room for another hookah lounge to open in East Lansing.

“I feel like it could probably (do well),” he said. “People like to go smoke hookah.”

East Lansing Community and Economic Development Administrator Lori Mullins also said she hopes both businesses will be successful.

Jeff Wareck, a manager at Silver Streak, 317 E. Grand River Ave., a location that sells hookah pipes and accessories, said the shop’s business most likely won’t change as a result of the opening.

“If anything, we might even get a little more business,” he said.

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