USF finance grad opens Temple Terrace hookah bar
5/31/2005 Temple Terrace, FL Stephanie Hayes The Kansas City Star (www.kansascity.com) Richard Preston's hookah pipe arrives at his table at the Meridian Hookah Lounge, and he takes a drag. The pipe, a centuriesold worldly tradition, is now on the lips of a 20-year-old heavy-metal enthusiast. Dressed in black, Preston sucks lemon-lime flavored tobacco smoke from a twisting tube and leans back, awash in the perfumed haze. He is mellow but talkative. "I worked my tail off today," says the Papa John's employee and University of Tampa student. "I come up here and it's like, "What's work?"' He shares the sofa with Jennifer Goubeaud, a 20-year-old University of South Florida psychology major. She smiles and sums up why college students are racing to try the hookah's sweet-tasting tobacco. "It's something good and legal to smoke," she says. The hookah, also known as the hubble-bubble or narghile, consists of a bowl connected to a vase of water with a long tube and mouthpiece. Shisha, a sticky, wet cocktail of tobacco, molasses and fruit, sits inside the bowl with a layer of foil and a hot coal on top. The smoke cools by passing through water. Between 200 and 300 hookah bars have opened in the country in the past five years, according to Smokeshop Magazine . Marc Karimi could be mistaken for a customer at Meridian. He has young skin, dark eyes and clean-cut hair. The 21-year-old nestles into a group of college students on a circular sofa. Karimi, a USF graduate, [...]