primitives discuss tobacco speakeasies

[franksolich]

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x4778150

Oh my.

High Plains (1000+ posts)      Tue Jan-06-09 04:38 PM
Original message
 
Smokeasies Defy Smoking Bans Across the County

http://www.examiner.com/x-536-Civil-Liberties-Examiner~...

Lit cigarettes remain common even in places where they're forbidden.There's no ban or edict that any government can stuff down its subjects throats that some people will not resent and defy. Ample proof of that comes from Illinois, where The Telegraph reports, "ike speakeasies during Prohibition, the area now has 'smokeasies.' Almost every town has a bar or two where people know they can go to smoke without being told to extinguish it." Welcome to the resistance, folks. Similar reports are trickling in from across the United States.

Where can you find smokeasies? Over the past few years, they've been spotted in Colorado Springs, Honolulu, New York City, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Seattle ...In Cleveland, where smoking and stripping were restricted at the same time, the bans resulted in two-fer "smokehouses" where sex, booze and tobacco mingle in a completely illegal environment. Sounds like, fun, to be honest.

Elsewhere, licensed, above-ground establishments simply thumb their noses at the law, relying on loyal clientele to appreciate the scofflawry and keep their mouths shut. Logically enough, this suggests that low-profile, neighborhood establishments have a better chance at surviving as speakeasies than glitzy joints full of ever-changing changing faces.

According to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer: The smoke-easies tend to be in neighborhood dives; the Ballard bartender noted that it's too risky to allow smoking in trendy bars like the ones in Belltown. "If you're in the Frontier Room or the Rendezvous," he said, "you can't tell who's going to mind the smoking or not because there's a different crowd there every night."

In a neighborhood dive, even a militant anti-smoker will keep his mouth shut if wants to avoid pariah status. None of this should be a surprise to anybody. The word "smokeasy" or "smoke-easy" is, after all, a play on "speakeasy," the name for establishments that sold illicit booze to willing customers during the long, dark years of Prohibition. Politicians may please themselves or the mob with restrictive laws, but very often such laws are unenforceable, because people subject to those laws aren't willing to comply, no matter the penalty.

<snip> More at link...

High Plains (1000+ posts)      Tue Jan-06-09 04:39 PM
Response to Original message
 
1. Smoke 'em if ya got 'em.

ColesCountyDem (448 posts)      Tue Jan-06-09 04:40 PM
Response to Original message
 
2. Our police chief: "When the IDPH sends me money to enforce it, I'll enforce it".

This is a sore point with many law-enforcement agencies...

High Plains (1000+ posts)      Tue Jan-06-09 04:44 PM
Response to Reply #2
 
4. It's also a sore point with many citizens. 

You can only police people as much as they want to be policed.

The Seattle bartender's comments are revealing. Smoking bans seem apropos for yupscale fern bars, not so much for neighborhood dives. I would imagine that the losses in income and gains in income everyone argues about divide along class and neighborhood lines.

Seems like an argument against smoking bans. If people want smoke-free environments, businesses will respond.

DJ13  (1000+ posts)      Tue Jan-06-09 04:49 PM
Response to Reply #4
 
8. If people want smoke-free environments, businesses will respond.

If market ideology trumped a near religious fervor to tell people how they should live that would be how this issue would be approached.

greyhound1966  (1000+ posts)        Tue Jan-06-09 05:04 PM
Response to Reply #8
 
13. Funny you should say that, that's how all this crap started.

The "smoke free" places in and around LA couldn't compete with the smoking establishments so they had to resort to force through legislation.

Smokers drink more and tip better.

kenfrequed  (1000+ posts)        Tue Jan-06-09 05:08 PM
Response to Reply #13

14. What?

I am a nonsmoker and I tip better than most of my 'smoker' friends.

You can't support a generalization like that, there has been no serious research.

greyhound1966  (1000+ posts)        Tue Jan-06-09 05:24 PM
Response to Reply #14
 
19. Not according to this.

A study funded by Cornell’s Center for Hospitality Research indicated that smokers spend an estimated 13.8% more in restaurants vs. all patrons, while non-smokers spend approximately 4.8% less.

This took me all of 30 seconds to find.

This is also born out by decades of experience in the business. When I managed lounges and the smoking area laws came into existence, I had to rotate the staff through the smoking section because the tips were far better and the smoking section stayed busier through the night. Working the non-smoking section was look on as almost a punishment.

I also have many friend's that own bars all over the country and in every case, once the ban goes in, business dropped. Believe me, we track this very closely, overall revenues go down and liquor and supplies order get smaller.

Forget the smoking/non-smoking advocate funded research, look at the trade analysis.

You are an exception. Sorry your friends are cheap.

AZDemDist6  (1000+ posts)        Tue Jan-06-09 04:42 PM
Response to Original message
 
3. that's the standard in our local bars

everybody has a metal lid with their name on it, the barkeep 'informs' them they are breaking the law and then hands over their personal 'ashtray' and away they go!!

the local BestWestern can't get away with it so they are spending $1000s to add a heated 'patio' outside the bar area

kiva  (533 posts)      Tue Jan-06-09 04:52 PM
Response to Reply #3

9. The local pub near me just provides short plastic glasses with a bit of water--sounds like your bar has a better solution.

liberal N proud  (1000+ posts)        Tue Jan-06-09 04:44 PM
Response to Original message
 
5. I have no problem with smoking parlors

I is just nice to go into a restaurant and not have to hear "Smoking or Non?" or be seated just on the opposite side of what the establishment terms as the a divider between smoking and non smoking.

monmouth  (1000+ posts)        Tue Jan-06-09 04:44 PM
Response to Original message
 
6. Many establishments got the message loud and clear when they lost a lot of customers, especially the bars.

edwardlindy  (1000+ posts)      Tue Jan-06-09 04:44 PM
Response to Original message
 
7. I recall pub in north London with a sign saying

If you don't like smoke - **** off.

irish.lambchop  (838 posts)      Tue Jan-06-09 04:54 PM
Response to Reply #7
 
10. Many pubs in Ireland have 'beer gardens' just beyond the exit doors outside their establishment that have have shelter from the rain (which is needed about daily!) and wind. Some have portable heaters and televisions. Many people just bring their pints outside to drink and smoke in relative comfort.

smokey nj  (1000+ posts)      Tue Jan-06-09 05:01 PM
Response to Reply #7
 
12. I was in London in Dec. 2006 before the smoking ban there, but well after smoking in bars and restaurants was banned here in NJ. I actually felt uncomfortable smoking in bars and restaurants while I was there, I'd gotten so used to going outside. Personally, I don't mind the smoking bans because I tend to chain smoke when I'm out drinking and having to go outside helps keep that in check.

billyoc  (1000+ posts)        Tue Jan-06-09 05:23 PM
Response to Reply #7
 
18. God bless England

so we say!

greyhound1966  (1000+ posts)        Tue Jan-06-09 04:57 PM
Response to Original message
 
11. There's a whole network in SoCal. Obviously I'm not going to mention any names, but there are many, usually very old landmark-type, establishments that just ignore the stupid laws. One of my favorite prime rib joints has never taken the ashtrays off the table and they still have their non-smoking area (closed off and ventilated). Whenever I had to travel in-state, I always stopped in to ask who they knew in the area I was going to and, except for the SLO area, they were always able to provide me with a few names of friendly bars and restaurants.

snooper2 (1000+ posts)      Tue Jan-06-09 05:13 PM
Response to Original message
 
15. No smoking ban in Dallas goes into effect in a couple months...

The local dive I go to will be a "smokeasy".....

Manager smokes, bartenders smoke, customers smoke- smoking will continue be damned!

Warpy  (1000+ posts)        Tue Jan-06-09 05:14 PM
Response to Original message
 
16. The best way around it is to start a private club that is not open to the general public but which has very, very easy membership terms.

Those neighborhood bars with the black clouds of smoke are going to be closed down when the cities need revenue and hit them with big fines for disobeying the law.

Joe Fields (1000+ posts)        Tue Jan-06-09 05:14 PM
Response to Original message
 
17. HA! Ya gotta love it!!!! Smokeasies....Where can I find one?

[thundley4]

Warpy  (1000+ posts)        Tue Jan-06-09 05:14 PM
Response to Original message
 
16. The best way around it is to start a private club that is not open to the general public but which has very, very easy membership terms.

The warped one is off base. Here in Illinois, smoking is banned even in private clubs and casinos.  Several  local bars tried to put up stand alone  smoking sheds, but were told they could not have doors or windows, because that constituted a building.

The law in Illinois goes so bar as to ban smoking in your own house if you operate a business out of it.

[Carl]

Some of the most powerful forces that do the most harm are often hard to see and even harder to understand. When I was a child, my family was attacked by an invisible force that was then considered harmless. My sister Nancy was older than me. There were only the two of us and I loved her more than life itself. She started smoking when she was 13 years old. The connection between smoking and lung cancer had not yet been established but years later the cigarettes had taken their toll.

It hurt very badly to watch her savaged by that terrible disease. Her husband, Frank, and all of us who loved her so much, tried to get her to stop smoking. Of course she should have, but she couldn't.

When she was 45, she had a lung removed. A year later, the disease had come back and she returned to the hospital. We all took turns staying with her. One day I was called to come quickly because things had taken a turn for the worse.

By then, her pain was nearly unbearable, and as a result, they used very powerful painkillers. And eventually it got so bad they had to use such heavy doses that she could barely retain consciousness. We sometimes didn't know if she could hear what we were saying or recognize us.

But when I responded to that call and walked into the hospital room that day, as soon as I turned the corner - someone said, "Al's here" - she looked up, and from out of that haze her eyes focused intensely right at me. She couldn't speak, but I felt clearly I knew she was forming a question: "Do you bring me hope?"

All of us had tried to find whatever new treatment or new approach might help, but all I could do was to say back to her with all the gentleness in my heart, "I love you." And then I knelt by her bed and held her hand. And in a very short time her breathing became labored and then she breathed her last breath.

Tomorrow morning another 13-year-old girl will start smoking. I love her, too. Three thousand young people in America will start smoking tomorrow. One thousand of them will die a death not unlike my sister's, and that is why, until I draw my last breath, I will pour my heart and soul into the cause of protecting our children from the dangers of smoking.

And that is also why I was intensely proud last week when President Clinton stood up for American families by standing up to tobacco advertising aimed at getting our children addicted. He proposed- he proposed the first-ever comprehensive plan to protect children from smoking; to ban tobacco advertising aimed at our children, and to ban it for good.

It took courage for Bill Clinton to take on the tobacco companies. I promise you it is no accident that no president has ever been willing to do it before.

http://www.al-gore-2004.org/gorespeeches/1996convention.htm

Sounds like that is what all the primitives should want...it is the word of the goreacle

[USA4ME]

High Plains

Seems like an argument against smoking bans. If people want smoke-free environments, businesses will respond.

DJ13

If market ideology trumped a near religious fervor to tell people how they should live that would be how this issue would be approached.

Goodness gracious, when did DUmmies suddenly start caring about free-market capitalism?

.

[LC EFA]

If I wish to allow smoking in an business I own, provided that the staff and customers are clearly notified that this is a smoke-included business, it should be my right to.

If the customers and staff have a problem with this then they can vote with their feet. They aren't forced to work for me or give me their custom.

Let the market decide if it's a viable option, not the government.

[Chris_]

If I wish to allow smoking in an business I own, provided that the staff and customers are clearly notified that this is a smoke-included business, it should be my right to.

If the customers and staff have a problem with this then they can vote with their feet. They aren't forced to work for me or give me their custom.

Let the market decide if it's a viable option, not the government.

Ya know, that's why you'd never make it up here in the People's Republic of Amerika LC.  You just try too hard to make logic, reason and common sense apply to any given situation.

[LC EFA]

Ya know, that's why you'd never make it up here in the People's Republic of Amerika LC.  You just try too hard to make logic, reason and common sense apply to any given situation.

We've already got fairly harsh anti-smoking laws in place over here.

Can't smoke inside or within 15 foot of the entrance too, any workplace , business or government building. This includes pubs , clubs etc.

IIRC They've also banned smoking in cars with children aboard (a good idea but one that should be common sense not legislation) in one state.

It's probably too early to tell, but from outward appearances it hasn't reduced the number of smokers or the lawsuits from second-hand smoke.