DAMASCUS, Syria (USA Today) -- In the shadow of the storied Umayyad Mosque, at the heart of Damascus' old city, one of the last classical Arabic storytellers takes to his throne in the Al-Nawfara Coffee Shop. Rashid Hallak, better known as Abu Shadi -- it means "father of Shadi," a common affectionate reference to a man's eldest son -- appears here almost every night.

He may not perform much longer, though. Syria has a new indoor smoking ban, which took effect April 21, and it threatens to hasten the end of the hakawati, the storyteller who relates such stories as tales from A Thousand and One Nights.

Fewer people are coming to the cafe, or they come but they don't linger, because they can no longer enjoy a water pipe while they listen, says Fady al-Rabat, 17, who is training to run the 300-year-old cafe. It has been in his family since his great-grandfather bought it.

"People still come to hear him," he says, "but they leave afterward. They don't stay around."

That means less revenue to pay the storyteller.

The old city is a warren of pedestrian activity, surrounded by the bustle of modern Damascus.

To walk to the Al-Nawfara is to take a trip back millenniums in time. The city's covered market, Souq al-Hamidiyya, situated between the new city and the Umayyad Mosque, boasts scores of clothing stores, ice cream parlors and knick-knack shops for tourists. The ancient mosque, an important religious site for Muslims, sits next to the overflowing stalls of the spice market and towers over the rest of the old city.

Al-Rabat expects the Al-Nawfara, on a leafy street behind the mosque, to survive the indoor smoking ban because it has tables spilling into the street, where smoking is still legal.

The new law makes it illegal to smoke at indoor cafes, restaurants, bars and other indoor public venues. It also strengthens enforcement and increases fines under previous, narrower smoking restrictions.

For smoking at an indoor cafe, fines are stiff for this country, where per-capita income was $4,490 in 2008. A smoker can pay a fine equal to $44, and the cafe owner can be hit with a $550 fine.

The ban collides with Syria's water-pipe culture. Water pipes, also known as hookahs, are the chief reason to visit coffeehouses for many people.

Water pipes "are not a tradition here in Syria that we have to live with and we have to protect," argues Bisher Daaboul, 40, who is on the board of the Syrian Society for Smoking Cessation. He notes water pipes have been in fashion only since the 1990s.

According to Daaboul's organization, 60% of Syrian adult males and 30%-40% of females smoke in some form.

The Syrian Society for Smoking Cessation opened its doors in 2004. Daaboul admits that the ban exceeded even his expectations.

"It was beyond our ambition to have such a ban implemented in Damascus," he says.

The new ban carries extra weight than previous laws because it came as a decree issued directly by President Bashar al-Assad, a physician.

Smoking has long been illegal on public transportation, but now drivers say they can no longer flout the law. Many still smoke cigarettes, but now they are careful to tuck them into the palms of their hands, hiding them from the view of police.

One driver, Ibrahim Hassoun, 26, says he works 12 hours a day and cannot afford to pull over for a smoke.

"I can't smoke now in public," he says, "because I have to pay fees if someone from the government catches me smoking."

Some cafe owners say enforcement of the law is inconsistent. At the Rawda Cafe in central Damascus, the owners were able to open enough windows in the indoor section for the government inspectors to consider it open-air.

Six miles south of Damascus, in Jaramana, Majeed Ali, 45, owner of the Green Oasis Cafe, wasn't so lucky.

He doesn't serve food, and his business depends on the water pipes. He tried to open the windows around the coffee shop in order to pass inspection.

When the authorities arrived, though, Ali says they told him to stop serving water pipes immediately. "I'm going to close my coffee shop soon," he says. "In the past week, just three or four tables a day were booked."

Ali noted that he had just invested in a new big-screen TV in anticipation of the business boom that World Cup soccer would bring.

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