[QUOTE=catsix]
The only way for a non-smoking bar to survive is to force all bars to be non-smoking. Knowing there’s not enough demand for non-smoking bars in the natural market, the anti-smoking crybaby loudmouths have to go and try to force it by law. Shouldn’t they try voting with their wallets and going to the non-smoking section or to the non-smoking bar?
[/QUOTE]
I’m not putting myself in the “anti-smoking crybaby loudmouth” category, as you so eloquently put it, because the way I tend to deal with the nearly total absence of nonsmoking bars where I live is that:
a) I don’t go to bars at all; or
b) on the rare occasions that I do have a reason to go to a bar that’s strong enough (there is a band that I’m absolutely dying to see, or more rarely, a bunch of friends decide to gather at a bar that allows smoking, and I decide that I am fucking sick of having my social activities restricted my my lung capacity) I will give it a try, at least until I can’t breathe anymore.
But if I’m in an establishment that allows smoking, you will never hear me complain about the smoke or the smokers, at least not unless someone asks why I suddenly start coughing and run out the door.
Of course, I’m luckier than many; my asthma is mild enough that I can go months between attacks if I’m careful, I 'don’t need any medication or other treatment for it except on those rare occasions that something triggers an attack, and I’ve never had an attack severe enough to put me in the emergency room. The last time I tried this stunt, to see a local band a couple of weeks ago, I lasted maybe 2 hours before I had to leave (through the whole first set! Yippee!) But that meant that I couldn’t sleep all night afterward because I was coughing all night and all the next day, even after taking medication, and because the medication makes my hands shake. Yes, that particular venue has a “nonsmoking” section, and my group was sitting in it; it consists of one table in the corner, with no barrier of any sort between it and the rest of the club (a rather small, one-room place). Needless to say, smoke tends to go wherever it feels the urge, so I don’t know why they even bother.
But let’s not kid ourselves that people who want (or need) to avoid smoke have many realistic options. Until the anti-smoking ordinance kicks in here, there are less than half a dozen indoor music venues, in one of the largest cities in the world, that are consistently smoke-free. Of those, only three host anything but classical music acts, and a grand total of one is a bar (and it’s also the only consistently nonsmoking music venue in Chicago with dancing, as far as I know, and believe me, I’ve looked).
Honestly, I don’t generally give a damn about bars as places to go drinking; I don’t drink much, and basically none of my friends smoke (they aren’t asthmatic; they just think cigarette smke is repulsive enough that they avoid it), so we end up either hanging out at at someone’s smoke-free house, or at a restaurant that doesn’t allow smoking. If the 80% of Americans who don’t smoke were adequately served by nonsmoking entertainment venues here, we’d probably be out more often, contributing to their revenues. And I suspect there are plenty of others like us.
But as a lifelong lover of music and dancing and a fairly serious amateur musician, I’d gladly pay my share - what was it, 1% and change? - in additional taxes, in exchange for the ability to do what I love without risking ending up in the hospital. What the heck, I’d probably even feel magnanimous and offer to pay your 1% extra, too.