Arabian Nights, between Bar Rendezvous, and Tradicia has had long periods of being "closed for refurbishment". I've been told at various times that they are going to re-open as a Grill, though the grill has stayed down mostly on the shop front in the High Street without much serious work on the shop in evidence.
In July 2008 the light in the High Street was on, with its rather pleasant neon and silver moving twinkly bits, with Arabic writing, coffee pot and camel, so I popped my head in the unshuttered door. The owner said that he was still not doing food, but was hoping to re-open in a couple of weeks time and that he would then have a menu. Since then, they have never quite got round to it. They must have better things to do. Out the back I could see that the rear garden terrace being used for shisha pipe smoking, customers making there way there through the rear entrance.
Presumably, being in the rear, they are not contravening the Smoke-free (Premises and Enforcement) Regulations and Smoke-free (Signs) Regulations for England, which come into effect at 6am on Sunday 1st July 2007.
I have to say that I quite like a shisha pipe. It reminds me of sitting in the arab quarter (Soi Arab, Sukhumvit 3)in Bangkok, with a friend who was possibly a spook, enjoying an honest early evening pipe and coffee around sundown while the world walked past on its way to their night jobs; some of the best organized loafing to be had on the planet. Quite what the attraction is of sitting in a back-garden in Walthamstow High Street is, I am not sure, though if the participants enjoy it, and, if its legal, then each to their own.
[Updated 25 March 2009]