The smoking issue

[beav99_4life]

How about those driving drunk and endangering others after the leave bars ? , certainly puts others at risk. The police could stake out any bar in the country and arrest several people for drunk driving.

I think that if cities or state authorities mandated that bars be located in industrial areas and that a person had to walk at least a quarter mile to their vehicle not many businesses would like that.


If laws were passed not to allow alcohol sales in beer and liquor stores after 9 pm to combat drunk driving no one would like it , me being one. The only reason the laws were passed is because they are enforceable .

Dave, I promise i'm not trying to be an ass, but not sure what you were getting at here. As for drunk drivers, I'd love it if every one of them was caught, fined and jailed. I was one of the few bartenders around here who would not serve people who I felt were too intoxicated. And if your last line is in regards to smoking, I think you're way off base. I don't think the smoking bans were put into effect because they're enforceable. They were put into effect because the public voted the law into place, probably because 80% of the population doesn't smoke and doesn't want to be around it if at all possible. Want to hear something funny? Go to any bar in Ohio and listen to the smokers complain about the ban, and then ask how many of them actually got up and went to vote against it if they despise it so much.

 

[gromulan]

The reality is that smokers are in a massive minority at present and the laws are written by people elected by the majority, so you can expect smoking bans in more and more places. Arguing that it's somehow unfair is just a waste of time. You'd be far more productive to lobby your local government to ban smoking in all bars and restaurants in your area to at least level the playing field. It's when Bar A has to ban smoking but Bar B is able to allow it because of some loophole that local economies are really affected.

Personally I was against the bans when they came down because I was a smoker, but in the long run it worked out well for me because when I quit I wasn't tempted by all the smoking in the pool room. I just had to get by the guys at the door while resisting the urge and I was good.

 

[donny mills]

How about those driving drunk and endangering others after the leave bars ? , certainly puts others at risk. The police could stake out any bar in the country and arrest several people for drunk driving.

I think that if cities or state authorities mandated that bars be located in industrial areas and that a person had to walk at least a quarter mile to their vehicle not many businesses would like that.


If laws were passed not to allow alcohol sales in beer and liquor stores after 9 pm to combat drunk driving no one would like it , me being one. The only reason the laws were passed is because they are enforceable .

I might sound nuts, but I think it's more the people that either drink way too much and drive, or people that just drive horrible drunk or sober and then of course the alcohol enhances their already awful driving.

Alot of people I know I wouldn't get in their car if they were sober... On the other hand some people I know I would get in their car after they had 6 beers and feel safe.

 

[Nine Ball]

Playing in an event or gambling in a non-smoking place when you're a long time smoker is pure torture. Sadly I'm a smoker of 14yrs and I'm only 27 years old.

In my opinion, Cigarettes should be illegal, but we know that will never happen. It's a horrible drug to be addicted to.

 

[david(tx)]

Dave, I promise i'm not trying to be an ass, but not sure what you were getting at here. As for drunk drivers, I'd love it if every one of them was caught, fined and jailed. I was one of the few bartenders around here who would not serve people who I felt were too intoxicated. And if your last line is in regards to smoking, I think you're way off base. I don't think the smoking bans were put into effect because they're enforceable. They were put into effect because the public voted the law into place, probably because 80% of the population doesn't smoke and doesn't want to be around it if at all possible. Want to hear something funny? Go to any bar in Ohio and listen to the smokers complain about the ban, and then ask how many of them actually got up and went to vote against it if they despise it so much.

By enforceable i mean if you smoke in a bar it's obvious , any patron could report you . If they made a law mandating the wearing of condoms to stop STD'S that would be unenforceable.

My position is this , a bar must post a sign in front saying they allow or do not allow smoking , then it is your choice whether to enter or not. I don't smoke , i just want people who do make that decision for themselves.


It's really not an issue for me personally , i like not being around smoke too.

 

[david(tx)]

I might sound nuts, but I think it's more the people that either drink way too much and drive, or people that just drive horrible drunk or sober and then of course the alcohol enhances their already awful driving.

Alot of people I know I wouldn't get in their car if they were sober... On the other hand some people I know I would get in their car after they had 6 beers and feel safe.

I think some people who drive after drinking focus more on their driving than they do sober. You take things for granted sober , a little drunk and your trying to not look like you've been drinking , but there is a point of no return.

 

[david(tx)]

Playing in an event or gambling in a non-smoking place when you're a long time smoker is pure torture. Sadly I'm a smoker of 14yrs and I'm only 27 years old.

In my opinion, Cigarettes should be illegal, but we know that will never happen. It's a horrible drug to be addicted to.

I started smoking about the age you did , my brother 4 yrs older than me got me smoking , he called me a chicken for not inhaling , after that it was over , not only that all the kids my age were smoking too.

In the 60's i could by cigarettes at any store , no questions asked. At 33 cents a pack i could get 7 coke bottles and have enough to buy them or skip lunch at school and have enough.

I quit at 17 when i become allergic to something in the air , some sort of pollen or weed , and everytime i smoked i got light headed so i swapped smokes for smokeless tobacco and was in my 30's before i quit it.


I learned only after i quit the Copenhagen that it had much more nicotine than a pack of smokes. You can quit , you just need to make a good run at it. If they would have checked kids before selling when i was a kid i doubt i would have smoked long.

Remember advocates of legalizing pot make the same argument that alcohol is a worse drug.

 

[JimS]

Dead horse. Smoking in public is anti-social. Sorry. That's just the truth. It's ok to do most anything you want to do until it hurts others and then it becomes abuse... anti-social. Time to grow up and do the right thing.

 

[Scott Lee]

Justin...Since Chad is listed as the manager of the new room in Sioux Falls, does that mean that he won't be with you in VF in two weeks, or Vegas in May?

Scott Lee
www.poolknowledge.com

All the rooms here in Vegas are smoking rooms. One of the biggest reasons I don't hang out in them. The older I get the lower the tolerance I have for smoke filled rooms of any sort so I exercise my right to just not patronize them.

I understand why a room owner wants smoking I just don't like going there unless I have to.

 

[smoooothstroke]

Hey Dave

A personal story regarding smoking, a state smoking ban and loss of revenue to a bar/pool room.

Prior to WA state's smoking ban several years back, I'd say that I spent at least four, if not five, afternoons/evenings a week at my favorite bar/pool room spending at least $25 per day on drinks alone (my pool time was always comped having been a pool league operator/president in the same establishment).

Not too long after the start of the smoking ban I bought myself a 9-foot Diamond Pro Am and converted my garage to a rec room... where I can shoot pool and smoke cigars in peace and comfort.

I haven't been back to my favorite bar/pool room in over three years.

BTW and FWIW, I have an exhaust fan in the window that is directly adjacent to my chair... so my guests don't have to endure a dense smoky environment when both of the doors in my garage are closed.

Dave it was only like 15' for you to walk outside and smoke yer cigar by the highway.Was wondering what happened to you.. I never got a chance to get my 50 bucks back...

 

[cueandcushion]

 

[CreeDo]

I dunno what prompts me to jump in on these dead horse threads. The only way I can do it and stay sane... is to skim a few posts, do a hit'n'run reply, and bail out of the thread.

Calling BS on:

-90% smoking rate (take a poll. Maybe it feels that way in a roomful of smoke)

-Smoking = americana. Anything can be called americana, if you have fond memories of growing up with it. Someone out there remembers the good old days of getting plastered at 14, driving without seatbelts and blasting stop signs with shotguns. Doesn't mean people should be allowed to indulge in those things, even if you consider it as american as baseball and apple pie.

- This is the bad old government restricting a business owner's freedom. ...Seriously, what horseshìt. Business owners have to comply with hundreds of laws. Some of them are inconvenient. Some cost them money. Do you complain that the owner doesn't have the freedom to block fire lanes or pack 300 people in a room rated for 200? With no fire exit? How about the owner's freedom to overserve alcohol to someone who already has had 10 beers and is visibly drunk? What about the owner's freedom to let female patrons strip for money, even if there are kids present? There are millions of ways an owner can make a few extra bucks... if he doesn't have much of a conscience. That's why we have laws. You can't just let people do anything they want and say "if you don't like it, go elsewhere."

- This is killing poolhall business. If anyone's pool hall dies, they should be looking to themselves and asking "what did I do wrong" instead of trying to pass the blame. I've seen pool halls do just fine without smoke (my entire state is full of 'em) and some even without liquor. Room owners need to figure out of they're just running a bar with 9 foot pool tables or an actual @#$!@$#! pool hall.

Something that I find depressingly true: Smokers just don't seem to care about other people if it even slightly interferes with their habit. Former smokers might find it easy to deal with smoke but they seem to think the rest of us are making it up when we say the air and smell is intolerable. And what's with flicking butts wherever? True story, at the pool halls where I've shot, they have to smoke outside... and the owners in both cases spent money on a butt receptacle... and people literally 1 foot from the receptacle flick their butts directly into the parking lot, sidewalk, or grass. Without fail. And out the windor of their car when they arrive even though they'll be walking right by it in 15 seconds. Man, I'm getting pissed just thinking about it. I wish people would just smarten up.

 

[JB Cases]

All the rooms here in Vegas are smoking rooms. One of the biggest reasons I don't hang out in them. The older I get the lower the tolerance I have for smoke filled rooms of any sort so I exercise my right to just not patronize them.

I understand why a room owner wants smoking I just don't like going there unless I have to.

In Las Vegas there used to be a poolroom called Pinkies. I went there one night with a bunch of folks from the trade show. Pinkies was one of those "upscale" bars masquerading as a pool room. BUT they did have a row of gold crowns not covered in pink cloth.

So we were all there for several hours and I managed to drop $400 playing one pocket - but that's another story - the one that pertains to this thread is that we all remarked on how clean the air was even though most of the people were smoking and the place was pretty full.

I asked the manager how they kept the air so clean and he pointed to the Honeywell air filters above us. As we looked they had one of these about every twenty feet it seemed and smoke from people cigarettes just went straight up and was gone. It wasn't drifting around the room.

Since then I have been convinced that the answer for establishments that want to allow smoking is to have enough of these to clean the air. I realize that it's an added expense for a business but I feel that it's a good compromise between an outright ban and smoky rooms.

 

[beav99_4life]

In Las Vegas there used to be a poolroom called Pinkies. I went there one night with a bunch of folks from the trade show. Pinkies was one of those "upscale" bars masquerading as a pool room. BUT they did have a row of gold crowns not covered in pink cloth.

So we were all there for several hours and I managed to drop $400 playing one pocket - but that's another story - the one that pertains to this thread is that we all remarked on how clean the air was even though most of the people were smoking and the place was pretty full.

I asked the manager how they kept the air so clean and he pointed to the Honeywell air filters above us. As we looked they had one of these about every twenty feet it seemed and smoke from people cigarettes just went straight up and was gone. It wasn't drifting around the room.

Since then I have been convinced that the answer for establishments that want to allow smoking is to have enough of these to clean the air. I realize that it's an added expense for a business but I feel that it's a good compromise between an outright ban and smoky rooms.

This is not the solution, because no matter how many of those smoke eating filters you have in a room, its not going to prevent me from inhaling the smoke of the guy's cigarette on the table next to me, or stop me from smelling like an ashtray. Trust me, one of the pool halls I played at dropped like $20,000 or so in smoke eaters, and although it wasn't as bad, those filters don't suck up as much of the smoke as people think.

 

[macguy]

I was going to answer Donny Mill's query about could anyone justify smoking in today's pool rooms? On the thread though, it was far off topic. I'll try and please non-smokers don't light into me. As I do this, remember I don't smoke.
90% of my customers smoke. Go out my front door in either direction one mile and it is legal to smoke but not in my little parcel of the township where my room is located. My town wants me to be non-smoking and also build a deck for my customers to go outside to smoke.
Playing pool and having a few drinks and enjoying smoking with friends is Americana at it's finest,NOT going outside in
the cold to enjoy one of life's greatest pleasures.
American pool rooms have to fade internet poker, casinos, inflation, taxation up the ying-yang. Lots of places are out of business and more to come. How about giving me and others a break about the smoking? I promise that I have suffered a lot more from alcohol and drugs than I ever did from smoking.
Thanks for your kind attention.
"The Professor"

I can make a case for either side, it's easy. I have never smoked in my life and am a vegetarian for the last 35 years. I have definite ideas how one can best live their lives. But I keep it to myself. I don't really like the idea of trying to regulate peoples lives because it is a slippery slope and where does it stop. I personally don't go in pool rooms anymore if they don't have adequate smoke eaters. That means most of my playing is reserved to my own pool room in the house. I have seen air cleaners and smoke eaters that work so well, the time one spent in the pool room, as long as it had say separate areas to smoke, would be the safest air they would breath all day. There are better ways to deal with a problem then going off the deep end with over regulating.

Having said all that, in business if it isn't one thing it will be another. I also have to say, if you say 90% of your customers smoke, that is an unbalanced number based on national stats of smokers and nonsmokers. If you are being truthful, I have a feeling your nonsmokers have been chased out. Hopefully as a non smoking room you will get them back. Remember, a smoker can come in and play with a little inconvenience. A non smoker can't really come in at all if it truly bothers them. My point is, you can accommodate both as a nonsmoking room. You can't as a smoking room. In the long run it should not have a game ending effect on your bottom line. If it does, you were too close to the edge financially in the first place.

If this is the new normal you have to figure a way to make it a positive, you have no choice.

 

[jersey jer]

i think it should just be as simple as letting the market decide.
no outright ban.
if more people would rather go to a non smoking room than a smoking room for only that reason then somebody would have opened one up without a ban.
JCIN plainly stated if he had the choice and never had to go to a smoking room then he wouldnt. thats cool. i would rather go where i can smoke, but i dont mind going outside for a butt either.
up to the present day there were always people who refused to go to smokey environs, if the market demand from them and other non smokers was strong enough it would have been done and somebody would have made a killing doing it. but.... all that happened in the states that first started banning was a drop in revenue at establishments such as bars, restaurants, etc.

 

[TheBook]

90% of my customers smoke. Go out my front door in either direction one mile and it is legal to smoke but not in my little parcel of the township where my room is located. My town wants me to be non-smoking and also build a deck for my customers to go outside to smoke.

"The Professor"

The only reason 90% of your customers are smokers is because non smokers stay away. When the smoking ban goes into affect the ratio will be 0% smokers to 100% non smokers so you will be gaining a lot of new customers. This is just false logic and a play on numbers but there will be more people coming in because they can now enjoy themselves. The non smokers had a choice and that was to stay away, don't think the smokers will because of that law as it will now get be everywhere.

Don't understand that building a deck thing for the smokers. What they need is a enclosed area so they can wallow in their smoke. This is where I don't understand the second hand smoke don't hurt you. If the smokers really feel this way why is it they always have a window cracked open in their car and why is it they will complain that the owners need to ventilate the place better and or install smoke eaters?

And why is it that they never have the ashtray with a burning cigarette in front of them?

Why is it they hold the cigarette away from them and if front of the person sitting next to them.

Then the dumbest thing is when they light a candle as if that will eliminate the smoke.

 

[justadub]

I love how we keep hearing stories about how business has dropped in restaurants and bars after smoking bans took effect. Maybe it's just how different we are here in Maine (and we really are, I suppose, for better and for worse ) but there are as many bars and WAY more restaurants in our town than ever before, even though we haven't had any huge population growth (as my taxes can attest to).

I'm not blowing smoke (sorry, couldn't resist) when I say this. It's been several years since the ban went into effect, and those businesses are fine. Better, even. Give it time in your area, and it'll be fine, too. People adapt. People don't stop drinking, eating or looking for love. The social environment will not die.

 

[doitforthegame]

Hey Grady- my sympathies. You described my exact situation when I owned my room. I did take a poll every night and 60% of my customers were smokers. When the smoking ban passed, most of the smokers just went to the next town to play pool and smoke. As far as the non smokers coming in after the ban....it doesn't happen! I advertised on television and local paper. After the damage was done some players did come back- but by then it was too late.

My 115 year old men's private club is going through this now. Everyone joined the club and the club was smoking. But now by god they are going to force their views on the minority (I still smoke an occasional cigar) and if we don't like it we can quit the club. (I am a third generation member- my grandfather was a member in the thirties).

 

[cigardave]

Dave it was only like 15' for you to walk outside and smoke yer cigar by the highway.Was wondering what happened to you.. I never got a chance to get my 50 bucks back...

But Jer... most of the cigars I smoke take about 30 - 45 minutes to smoke... way too much time to dedicate to nothing else but smoking. And when I'm on the outside lookin' in, and I see a rack of balls on an unused table, the allure of the game is too strong to resist. I gotta hit balls.

BTW, if you want to play again, shoot me a PM and we'll set a time to play here at my house. My table is exactly like those at Dave's (Golden Fleece) room... a 9' Diamond Pro Am w/ pro-cut pockets and w/ Simonis 860 tournament blue and with cherry-stained Dymondwood rails.. it's sweet.

Later brother.