Little Slice of heaven in Tuskaloosa,Alabama

genomachino

genomachino

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
:angel2:
I was pleasantly surprised tonight when I went to a poolhall called Bama Billiards Club. There were about 15 cars and trucks in the parking lot. But that wasn't what was so great.

It is a non-smoking poolhall in the midst of all the other poolhalls that are afraid they couldn't survive without smoking.

My hats off to Harold McAbee for having enough balls to have just opened Bama Billiards Club and give the pool players in the area an option to the smoke.

The equipment is great. I think there are 3 9' foot diamonds. And 7 or 8 diamond bar tables.

As I said it is like a little slice of heaven.:angel2:

When I first came to Birmingham, Alabama I almost turned around and headed right back. My health is more important than trying to give lessons in a poisonous atmosphere.

It appears there's alot of action there already.

This will be my home court while I'm here.

Everyone close to this poolhall needs to check it out.:yeah:

Great Job Harold and Good Luck..............:thumbup:
 
genomachino said:
:angel2:
I was pleasantly surprised tonight when I went to a poolhall called Bama Billiards Club. There were about 15 cars and trucks in the parking lot. But that wasn't what was so great.

It is a non-smoking poolhall in the midst of all the other poolhalls that are afraid they couldn't survive without smoking.

My hats off to Harold McAbee for having enough balls to have just opened Bama Billiards Club and give the pool players in the area an option to the smoke.

The equipment is great. I think there are 3 9' foot diamonds. And 7 or 8 diamond bar tables.

As I said it is like a little slice of heaven.:angel2:

When I first came to Birmingham, Alabama I almost turned around and headed right back. My health is more important than trying to give lessons in a poisonous atmosphere.

It appears there's alot of action there already.

This will be my home court while I'm here.

Everyone close to this poolhall needs to check it out.:yeah:

Great Job Harold and Good Luck..............:thumbup:
Click to expand...

That is great!
 
genomachino said:
:angel2:
I was pleasantly surprised tonight when I went to a poolhall called Bama Billiards Club. There were about 15 cars and trucks in the parking lot. But that wasn't what was so great.

It is a non-smoking poolhall in the midst of all the other poolhalls that are afraid they couldn't survive without smoking.

My hats off to Harold McAbee for having enough balls to have just opened Bama Billiards Club and give the pool players in the area an option to the smoke.

The equipment is great. I think there are 3 9' foot diamonds. And 7 or 8 diamond bar tables.

As I said it is like a little slice of heaven.:angel2:

When I first came to Birmingham, Alabama I almost turned around and headed right back. My health is more important than trying to give lessons in a poisonous atmosphere.

It appears there's alot of action there already.

This will be my home court while I'm here.

Everyone close to this poolhall needs to check it out.:yeah:

Great Job Harold and Good Luck..............:thumbup:
Click to expand...

So that's where Harold's pool room is located. Harold's a nice guy who loves pool. Glad to hear the room is smokeless. Wish it was closer to me.
 
Re:Room in Tuscaloosa

Harold McCabe is a very nice young man and deserves all the support anyone and everyone can give him and the game of pocket billiards. The biggest obstacle he may face in being successful is the same hazard that everone faces when starting a business doing whatever it is they are passionate about; they forget to run it like a business! Wish Harold great success and I look forward o visiting his room soon.
 
Looks great to me..........

Doug said:
Harold McCabe is a very nice young man and deserves all the support anyone and everyone can give him and the game of pocket billiards. The biggest obstacle he may face in being successful is the same hazard that everone faces when starting a business doing whatever it is they are passionate about; they forget to run it like a business! Wish Harold great success and I look forward o visiting his room soon.
Click to expand...

I ran a nightclub/poolhall for 12 years and was fairly successful. The secret is not to make many mistakes. There are no reruns in real life or business.

The one thing that I did not realize back then was the number of people that never came to my business because of the smoke. Many of the people that came to my nightclub are dead today. Not just from my nightclub and the smoke but from their whole lifestyle altogether. But the bottom line was they just were not too concerned about their health so they didn't mind being in all that smoke.

The 100's or 1000's of people that would never come to my business because of the smoke and they cared about their health are all still alive. Or at least most of them.

I guess what i'm trying to say is if everyone that came into your business smelled like a skunk when they left they probably wouldn't come back. Especially if the skunk smell was known to hurt your health or maybe kill you eventually. Made your eyes burn and your nose run. Made it kind of hard to breath that night when you slept. Made you feel like you had a hangover even though you didn't even drink. The list could go on and on .

Bottom line is it's amazing that people don't get what has been ruining the game of pool for years. The more people get smart about their health the less they are likely to go in the smoke. It's amazing that pool has survived as well as it has with this dingy atmosphere.

But when i had my nightclub and somebody told me the smoke was going I would have probably screamed to high heaven thinking that it would kill my business. When all along it was killing it silently for years.

take the test. Go to someplace where they smoke alot and the people are in the smoke alot. Grade the health of the people by how they look. Hair,skin and physical appearance.

Then go to a place where there is no smoking ever and great the appearance of the people.

It's a no brainer#$@%&%#
 
iba7467 said:
Do they serve alcohol?
Click to expand...

If it's non-smoking and a poolhall and has customers, I'm at 90% that they do. Soon as the smoking ban hit MA, every room without booze shut down within a few years.

The one place I know of that's open like that, the owner of the place also owns the building as another business and the pool hall has not paid rent in a long time.
 
I agree that smoke free pool halls are are great idea but only if the owner wants it and not if forced by law. Double Hill Billiard Club in Chattanooga is doing great due to being a non-smoking establishment. DH may be the only smoke free pool hall in Tennessee. Not much action though.
 
Too bad the law has to step in.............

chevybob20 said:
I agree that smoke free pool halls are are great idea but only if the owner wants it and not if forced by law. Double Hill Billiard Club in Chattanooga is doing great due to being a non-smoking establishment. DH may be the only smoke free pool hall in Tennessee. Not much action though.
Click to expand...

It's too bad the Amarican people were not more knowledgeable about the bad effects of second hand smoke. I smoked until I was 31. The doc said my girlfriend was at risk of a stroke if she smoked and took the birth control pill. So I quit for her or I probably would have never quit.

But back then if someone told me I couldn't smoke here or there I would have went ballistic.

Once you quit and see the bad effects it does to you by just being in it for one night it's really kind of rediculous. It's too bad the law had to step in to correct something that probably never should have been allowed in the first place. But then again the laws are made by the majority of the people.

Cigs are like a drug with a physical and a mental addiction. Just look at all the people trying to quit that can't. Some are dying from it and are on their last breath but as long as they can get that cig to their mouth they have to do it because they are addicted. I was there. Not dying but addicted.

Every once in a while the drug companies come out with a drug that is killing some people. The government eventually steps in and stops them after they have killed a thousand or so people and says you can't do this anymore. Nobody complains about that except the people that are making the money or the people that are addicted to the drug and not dead yet maybe. Cigs are more addicting though than most drugs.

152 million people are killed every year from smoking related things in the US alone. I don't know if that is true but I just read it the other day. I know 3 people personally that are going through chemo or have went through and don't even smoke but come in the poolroom still and put up with the smoke. They love pool and the friends they have are all there.

One guy i knew in Olathe says he now just goes in during the day when the smoke isn't so bad. He just gets a little dose of poison. He was going through chemo then. I havn't been there for 2 years. He might be dead by now. What a shame. When I talked to him he was telling me about the bad side effects from the chemo. I felt really bad for him.

I feel really bad for the people that are addicted today. If it wasn't for all the big money and money the government is making the cigs would be gone just like the drugs that are killing people quickly.

It's funny though. the drugs that kill you slowly or not as many never get banned. Because they only kill so many people a year.

If a drug killed 152 million people in one year how long would it be on the market???????????

Sorry about the long rant here but if one person reads this and quits smoking because of it, it was worth the time. Just one. If you are that one please let me know someday in a PM. That would truely make my day.

Thanks for reading geno...........
 
When I transferred to Birmingham with IBM I thought it would be a lot like Lexington, Ky. Boy, was I wrong. It's real redneck country (no offense to anyone). On the positive side, they had the best quick food restaurants I ever ate in. There was a bar-b-que shack called "Luther's" that was outstanding. Too bad it burnt down about 15 years ago. Chicken joints in Birmingham all serve delicious meals. Which brings us to Tuscaloosa - there was a bar-b-que place there run by a little old woman. They only served bbq ribs with beans and a paper plate of white bread. Wow, it was delicious. But talk about rednecks - I was reading the Sunday paper one morning and read that the local bar was closed down. I had never been in it, but seems that on weekends you could wrestle a declawed, toothless, female bear. The police closed the place down for animal cruelty. But the local boys thought that was fun. They should have tried wrestling a fully toothed and fully clawed male bear - now that would have been fun to watch. Good luck with your stay in Alabama. The good news is that you're only an hour away from Atlanta.
 
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Sad to say, being married to a smoker and working in a hospital, the only thing that will make many people quit smoking is death. The willpower and dedication to stop smoking is just not there, easier to pay $8 a day to kill yourself. I tell my wife every time I find empty packs , hey look hon, you wasted $100 this month to die before our kids. No effect. She quit once for a month, then started again and every time I say she need to stop it's "can't now too much stress at work" "can't now I need to focus on the house" "can't now... some other crap excuse".

The other part about smokers, look at the litter around the streets. Half is cig butts and packs, the other half is McDonalds trash. Every time I see some idiot toss a lit cigarette out of his car I want to ram them. I bet half the fires in California are caused by someone smoking.
 
And this public service report was brought to you by Geno-machino:thumbup: haha
Kudos to Bama Billiards for no smoking...

They may be rednecks in Bama but man they make the best food!:D I miss the South..maybe one day move back. Green trees, sweet southern air, flowers and lightening bugs!
 
So, half the population in the U.S. die every year from smoking related deaths? I would love to bet high on that stat being incorrect!
 
Is there only 304 million people in the USA ?

exoldschoolpro said:
So, half the population in the U.S. die every year from smoking related deaths? I would love to bet high on that stat being incorrect!
Click to expand...

Maybe the stat was for the world. Not sure or even if the numbers I remembered were correct. But it was a rediculous amount.

Whatever it was it was alot. Point being..............
 
genomachino said:
Maybe the stat was for the world. Not sure or even if the numbers I remembered were correct. But it was a rediculous amount.

Whatever it was it was alot. Point being..............
Click to expand...

Here's a web site with tons of numbers about deaths from smoking.
If the site is accurate, it looks like the death count is about 5-6 million per year worldwide, including about 1/2 million in the U.S.
 
I think this is bad enough..........

AtLarge said:
Here's a web site with tons of numbers about deaths from smoking.
If the site is accurate, it looks like the death count is about 5-6 million per year worldwide, including about 1/2 million in the U.S.
Click to expand...

Thanks. I ain't quite as many as I thought but it still is enough. it's the second hand smoke that worries me because i don't smoke and i get so sick from just a little second hand smoke.

It sounds like my body is telling me enough already. The next step I'm afraid if I don't listen to what my body is telling me is really getting sick. Alot of us are at this point. Right on the edge i'm afraid.

Is it worth it for me to go imto a place with smoke to try and enjoy the game i love.

I've done it 3 times this year and each time I was real sorry I did for about 5 days. It's kind of like getting self inflicted flu for 5 days.

Kind of stupid. Huge price to pay to play pool. Your personal health........
 
Gene,

You are a LONG way from home.

When you are on the road like this, DO YOU GIVE POOL LESSONS when you are traveling? I mean can someone just give you a jingle and ask you to stop at their town and give them a lesson on Perfect Aim?

What is the phone number for them to reach you for a pool lesson?
 
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