COVID-19: Ban on cafes serving sisha continues in Kuwait until further notice

Kuwait City: Shisha cafes are allowed to continue to remain open for business but they are still banned from serving shisha, local media reported.

Although restaurants and cafes were allowed to reopen in May 2020, shisha cafes were given the green light to resume businesses as long as they did not serve shisha.

The ban on serving has been on since the pandemic first began over a year and a half ago. While they have been allowed to reopen, shisha owners said that opening without serving shisha does them no good and does not bring in any business.

Two months ago, owners of shisha cafes staged a protest demanding that the ban on serving shisha be lifted. During a protest at the Ministry of Health, they stated that more than 6,000 shisha cafes in Kuwait have accumulated more than one billion Kuwaiti dinars in losses since the pandemic began in March 2020.

The decision comes as the Kuwaiti government announced on Monday that they will be lifting the two-month ban on commercial activities ordering them to close at 8pm. All commercial activities from malls and restaurants to gyms and saloons will be allowed to remain open past 8pm as of Tuesday.

However, only vaccinated people are allowed entry into commercial centres. The decision was put into effect a month ago and requires that only those who have one or both doses of the COVID-19 vaccine will be allowed into commercial businesses.

Those that are not vaccinated are barred entry except into pharmacies, supermarkets, government buildings and public and private medical centers.