The Whiskey goes Smoke Free! Big Whiskey's Cravings Return.

I recently marked my first full year without a cigarette. Prior to that I put away one to three packs a day for fourteen years. I quit of my own valition and cold turkey. It was a pain in the ass but apparently it has worked.

It was my choice. I believe it was the right one. But I never could get in with those who believe that it's their place or right to make that decision for anyone else. I especially can't stand people who want to use government to punish those who choose to do otherwise, or to meddle in the business of restaurants, bars and clubs who cater to a smoking clientele. The simple fact is this: smoking is a choice. You don't have to do it. You don't have to be around it. If a restaurant owner allows smoking in his establishment and you don't like it, you don't have to eat there. If your place of employment allows smoking and you don't like it, you don't have to work there. If you don't like the smell of smoke in bars, you don't have to drink there.

This whole anti-smoking movement particularly bothers me when aimed at bars and clubs. The whole point of going to these places is to engage in unhealthy living. Alcohol, tobacco, bad food, and hooking up with strangers for sex are the primary draws of American nitelife. Unfortunately, some do-gooders just can't mind their own damned business and leave others to theirs, even in the bar industry.

Posted below are a MySpace bulletin originally posted by The Whiskey 1803 niteclub in Annapolis MD. Below that is my response, which I did send to them before posting it here. Please note that my primary objection to the self imposed ban on smoking in the club was not the fact that they made the decision, but the obvious attitude behind it, and their support for laws aimed at using local government to prohibit other club owners from making decisions on this matter other than their own.

Both appear as they were originally written, but I do need to note two corrections to my response, both of which concern the Firestation 8 Bar & Grill, which is owned by an acquaintence of mine.

FS8 has 8 regulation size pool tables, not 4.

Fs8's former policy of no-cover shows has changed under its new management. A cover is now charged after a certain time of night, but I'm not sure what time.

Both of these facts were brought to my attention bythe club's owner, after I wrote the original email to the Whiskey.

Original bulletin posted by The Whiskey 1803 on MySpace.com:

"The Whiskey BOLDLY goes NO SMOKING!!

As of January 19th, 2007 the Whiskey 1803 will be a smoke free environment to enjoy your favorite bands. There has been much talk in the last few years about a smoking ban for bars/clubs in Anne Arundel County but this bill has been quickly dismissed. We at The Whiskey 1803 hope to spearhead a campaign of smoke free entertainment, to not only show that it can be done effectively, but in hopes that other establishments will follow suit. Non-smokers are sick of waiting for law makers to get off their butts, no pun intended.
We do not intend to exclude smokers by any means. There will still be smoking available in the downstairs bar of BF Biggins, and on our spacious outside deck adjacent to The Whiskey 1803. You can step out, have a smoke, and step right back in. This is so we can cater to smokers and non-smokers, and not alienate either group.
Please spread the word and tell other establishments to do the same. The time has come, we just wanted to be the first to do it.

Dave"

Big Whiskey Sam's Reply:

"First off, let me say that as a bonafide free-marketeer and former niteclub manager, I fully support the right of businessmen to make whatever decisions they deem best for their establishments, even decisions that are demonstrably stupid.

Speaking as a Baltimore/DC area band member (who has been smoke free for a little over a year now), I think this is an assinine policy. It's a killer for bands playing on your stage. It goes like this: you take the stage on a night with a decent crowd, but the majority of that crowd is outside or in another room while you are playing. Most of them, as you will clearly see once your self imposed ban takes effect, are smokers. A sizeable portion of the nonsmokers in attendance are friends with smokers, and spend the whole night outside socializing with their buddies who are busy puffing away.

The only people in front of the stage wind up being the people that came out specifically for your band (your friends, in other words), and they're not the ones you're playing for. It's the other bands' crowds, the ones who haven't heard you a million times, that you are trying to impress and take into your fanbase and sell your merch to. This is made all the more difficult when the patrons, who came out to a bar specifically to enjoy deliberately partaking in unhealthy living, have to leave the room in order to do so. When faced with the choice of "leave the room and have a smoke/hang with my friends while they smoke" or "stay here and jones/all alone and catch this band I've never heard of," most will choose the former.

For evidence of this, one need look no further than Firestation 8 in Gaithersburg (where the smoking ban you lament missing in AA county is in full effect). It's a very nice club, and maintains a strong regular patronage by offering decent food, a very wide range of drinks, several big screen TVs with couches to watch them from, 4 regulation size pool tables free of charge, and a strict no-cover-anytime policy. There is a large patio area outside where people can smoke, and it is always packed to the gills, even in the winter, while the club inside remains sparsely populated. Even bands with strong local followings wind up losing watchers as their set goes on.

Now, let's suppose Montgomery county lifted it's smoking ban, but FS8 decided to keep its restrictions in place even as neighboring bars and clubs did away with theirs. Where do you suppose that oversized crowd on the patio would go? Note that in AA county, you do not have the luxury of the government keeping others from offering what you don't.

Equally idiotic is your apparent motivation behind this new policy. To judge from your bulletin, this decision is based not in any professional judgement, but rather in a desire to thumb your nose at people who have the unmittigated gall to make decisions concerning their own lives and lungs that you don't approve of. You also seem to forget that these are the people who buy your drinks and pay your bills.

Your statement that "Non-smokers are sick of waiting for law makers to get off their butts" is demonstrably false. Obviously it's not that big a deal to them, or else they would not be patronizing bars that permit smoking. Nobody forces them to, and they can always go somewhere or do something else. The time obviously has not "come," as you so overdramatically put it.

Those to whom it is that big a deal, don't. However I sincerely doubt there are any nonsmokers out there reading your bulletin and thinking "Oh thank God! I've always wanted to hang out at the Whiskey 1803 but I couldn't because of the smoke!" The nonsmoking clientele you have will likely remain pretty much the same, though you will lose some of your smoking clientele. How much will depend on the competition in your area.

I understand that Annapolis is and has always been a haven for tender minded types who mistakenly believe that their politics (which is exactly what all this is about) make them somehow morally superior to those who disagree, and that this superiority gives them the right to make other peoples' decisions for them. Your support for a county wide smoking ban shows that this is obviously your mindset. Otherwise, you'd simply have banned smoking in your club from the beginning and left everyone else to do as they will. But no, you want the government to prohibit others from making a choice you don't approve of.

Ultimately though, it is your call to make, and your consequences to reap. I simply get irritated when I read ignorant tripe like the bulletin you posted. And, thanks to the modern marvel that is the internet, I get to let you know exactly why.

-Whiskey
Dreams in Fear
Motel Hell Entertainment"