By RUSS OLIVO

WOONSOCKET — Long the home of the wiener and French fry, blue collar Main Street may soon host a new specialty you’d be more likely to find in a trendy college town — the hookah bar.

If all goes according to plan, Egyptian-born Nansy Ibrahim will open a spot where patrons can watch gyrating belly dancers, nosh on koftah with rice and, above all, engage in the age-old Middle Eastern practice of smoking exotically flavored tobaccos from a large, water-cooled  pipe known as a hookah.
“It’s relaxing,” says Ibrahim, 29, a city resident. “It’s enjoyable. I’ll tell you’ve I’ve talked to a lot of people and they tell me they can’t wait to try it. They all want to know when I’m going to be open.”
Ibrahim already has permission from the state Division of Taxation to launch a business exempt from the ban on smoking in public places. She also wants the City Council to grant her a license to sell beer and wine. But whether she gets it or not Ibrahim plans on opening her business, “Hookah Nights,” at 111 Main St. by the first week of February.
Hookahs are basically ornate and often-decorated pipes that are so large they sit upright on a floor or table. They are used for smoking flavored tobacco, sometimes called shisha. As the user inhales that burning tobacco through a long hose, the smoke passes through a chamber of water that is supposed to make it smoother and cooler.
Historians believe the tradition of smoking the hookah began in Pakistan over a thousand years ago and later spread throughout the Middle East.. There have been hookah bars in isolated enclaves of Middle Eastern immigrants in the United States for many years, though it was rare for outsiders to stumble across them. During the last few years they have made steady inroads into more mainstream areas as their popularity has grown with college students and younger professionals.
There are at least three other hookah bars in Rhode Island, including one on Federal Hill in Providence, another near Brown University and one near the University of Rhode Island. Hookah-Bars.com, an online directory of such establishments, says there are over 400 hookah bars spread all over the country.
A graduate of American University in Egypt, Ibrahim has a degree in business management and she submitted an elaborately detailed business plan to the city that portrays Hookah Nights as a restaurant-like establishment, offering a variety of Middle Eastern beverages and appetizers as well as shisha-smoking.
The menu will feature 23 different flavors of tobacco, from apple to bubble gum. For most flavors, it will cost $15 for about a half-hour’s worth of smoking, although a few specialty flavors, including chocolate and spiced rum, will cost slightly more.
“Hookah Nights is being formed as a smoking bar and lounge in Woonsocket in response to new and upcoming trends that have not been brought to the area yet,” Ibrahim’s business plan says.
Economic Development Director Jeffrey Polucha said he is supportive of the Ibrahim’s proposal. It’s not the kind of business one would expect to find on Main Street, he said, but it makes sense from a marketing standpoint to reach out to people who might not otherwise patronize businesses downtown.
“I think it fits in with what we’re trying to do with Main Street,” said Polucha. “It’s something totally unique that will bring in a diverse group of patrons to Main Street, and that’s a good thing.”
Polucha said Ibrahim dropped off a business plan to the economic development office as a courtesy. He said the city did not solicit the business. Ibrahim apparently learned that space was available in the Commercial Building from a Web site operated by the landlord, Norman Beaudoin of Cumberland, and entered a lease with him.
Ibrahim later took out an application for a beer and wine license at the office of the city clerk, Polucha said. The City Council is expected to consider the matter on Jan. 20.
Ann Marie Beardsworth, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Health, said the state Division of Taxation regulates businesses that claim to be operating under an exemption from the ban on smoking in restaurants and bars. In order to operate within the scope of the law, such businesses, including hookah bars, must derive no less than 50 percent of their revenue from the sale of tobacco products.
Officials have the right to conduct an unannounced audit of such businesses after they have been in operation for one year to make sure they are complying with the law, she said.