Smoking Venues

[osv]

I no longer gig, but smoking in bars was a thing back then (now banned). It was the worst part of gigging. I feel for the OP.
I’m self employed now and work in peoples homes. I have it noted on my business website, that if you smoke in your home, I’m not interested in working for you.

 

[vindibona1]

The anti-smokers weren't in the majority for long, long time. They were just the squeaky wheel that got all the oil.

Forgive me, but I think you don't have it stated correctly. At the time there was a differentiation between non smokers and "anti" smokers. Most non-smokers just shut up and took it because in 1954 45% of adults smoked. Smoking was one of those culturally accepted things that would have ostracized anyone had they spoken up. And so non smokers and anti smokers in the 50's were a small majority, but a majority still. Smokers were everywhere and there was no escape. By 2018 30% of adults smoked. That left/leaves 70% of us in the other groups.

I grew up in a home where at one time both my parents smoked. I was more or less assimilated to the smell and didn't notice the residual stench but the smoke itself was still abusive to a young person. As a child I remember being taken to a theater play by my mother during the winter downtown. As we waited in the glass enclosed waiting room waiting at the parking garage, all the folks who couldn't smoke in the theater lit up. I rember coughing and gagging. Our car couldn't come too soon. I was a child, a non-smoker and certain couldn't be an "anti-smoker" at that age. I remember riding in the car with my mother and her friends, both/all smoking with the windows rolled up. My complaints went unheeded.

In the work place I felt absolutely abused. While one can get assimilated to the stench, most non smokers cannot get used to heavy smoke as they breathe it. Sales meetings with multiple people chain smoking, including the bosses. The needs of those of us just wanted some relief from the smoke wasn't even recognized. But in the workplace one had to be careful not to be seen as a "complainer". So we just shut up and took it.

Of course those who opposed smoking in public places were in the majority, even back in the 50's. We were just too afraid to speak up. Sadly it took government bodies to step in which started taking action. It shouldn't have taken government intervention to get people to do what was right. But they didn't.

 

[Patrice B]

Forgive me, but I think you don't have it stated correctly. At the time there was a differentiation between non smokers and "anti" smokers. Most non-smokers just shut up and took it because in 1954 45% of adults smoked.

Raised in the mid-seventies, early 80’s: ah, the fond memories of my grandmother, uncle and two French friends visiting Québec. All smoking in the car, except me obviously at 6-7 years old. It was the norm then and I don’t remember it annoyed me at all. Same goes for the Holiday party’s where even my mother and father (non-smokers) lit one up just to behave like everyone else…!

It was another era, still with cigarettes adds everywhere, toxic fumes from the aluminium plant where we lived, no obligation to wear seatbelts in the car, leaded gazoline still a thing and so on…

 

[perfektspace6]

Fun thread OP.

I remember playing gigs and all the smoke but never really cared. Probably because my best friends house had smokers and I was over there all the time. I was in the Middle East a few months ago and you could smoke just about everywhere (hotels, restaurants etc.). I have to admit I felt a bit of nostalgia for being able to do whatever you want despite not liking being around it. There is a bit of fun factor being around something reckless.

 

[zontar]

I don't know if I could take a gig in a smoking venue anymore--or go to see a show in one
I'd likely be unable to breath for at least a week.

But for those who aren't bothered by it...

 

[Lowandfat]

It wasn't until I was playing a tour in Paris that I found out that if you prefer non-smoking in Paris, the section starts about 2 miles outside the city limits when you hit open country, and there are no other people.

 

[BlueRock]

It wasn't until I was playing a tour in Paris that I found out that if you prefer non-smoking in Paris, the section starts about 2 miles outside the city limits when you hit open country, and there are no other people.

Like Tony Levin said in Beyond the Bass Clef, no smoking signs don't mean as much in France.

 

[BassAndCigars]

I'll just be over here................
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[Smooth_bass88]

I can fully-understand making an "avoidance choice" to help keep an addiction at bay: cigarettes, alcohol, any addictive substance: I get that. But because your gear might "smell" ? Not so much. It's a smelly business: The loading-docks in the bowels of most resort hotels come to mind.

I also agree with @two fingers in that Obesity, not second-hand smoke is a FAR greater, almost omnipresent threat in the USA and a better candidate if we want a serious and costly health problem freak out about.

This thread just seems like farmers going on a Tractor-Forum to complain about mud.

thing is though, second-hand smoke is extremely harmful to non-smokers. If the person sitting next to me at a diner is overeating, that doesn't harm me. If the person sitting next to me at the bar is drinking too much, that doesn't (necessarily) harm me. Someone lights up a cigarette next to me indoors, that absolutely harms me. This is nothing in the world that compares the smoking in that way.

 

[Hambone70]

26918160[/URL], member: 81861"]thing is though, second-hand smoke is extremely harmful to non-smokers. If the person sitting next to me at a diner is overeating, that doesn't harm me. If the person sitting next to me at the bar is drinking too much, that doesn't (necessarily) harm me. Someone lights up a cigarette next to me indoors, that absolutely harms me. This is nothing in the world that compares the smoking in that way.

This is true, yet smokers still attempt to justify their disgusting and harmful habit by deflecting similar blame onto non-smokers who drink, overeat, underexercise, etc. They have no other way to justify the harm they willfully cause others. As much as I hate government intervention, this is one time where I feel they got it right.

 

[Confunk]

thing is though, second-hand smoke is extremely harmful to non-smokers. If the person sitting next to me at a diner is overeating, that doesn't harm me. If the person sitting next to me at the bar is drinking too much, that doesn't (necessarily) harm me. Someone lights up a cigarette next to me indoors, that absolutely harms me. This is nothing in the world that compares the smoking in that way.

+1
IIRC, studies show that 2nd-hand smoke may be at least as harmful, maybe even worse than someone inhaling their ciggie.
(I'm an ex-smoker, and I admit- We can be the harshest critics of smokers).

 

[vindibona1]

This is true, yet smokers still attempt to justify their disgusting and harmful habit by deflecting similar blame onto non-smokers who drink, overeat, underexercise, etc. They have no other way to justify the harm they willfully cause others. As much as I hate government intervention, this is one time where I feel they got it right.

The one argument that was used was often used was the "smokers' rights" excuse.

Interestingly, while they have the same information as we have in the US, smoking is still highly popular in Europe, Israel and Asia and other countries around the world. I don't get it.

 

[Marko 1]

I smoke, the band rehearses here, and I make sure there's not even a hint of cigg smell in the air when they come.

I'm also perfectly good with no smoking in bars/etc; I don't drink, so I wouldn't be in a bar unless it's a gig...

between sets there's always somewhere outside I can go to have a cigg.

 

[marchone]

Smoking was made illegal to placate a small percentage of the population.

Smoking was made illegal to lower public health costs.

 

[Jimmy4string]

Last Cigarette, last cigarette one before i go to bed! /Dramarama

 

[sunbeast]

I would not be interested in even a one-off gig in a smoking establishment at this point. I worked in a bar and gigged regularly when the smoking ban went into effect in Denver in the mid-2000s and it was probably the single biggest mandated public health improvement I've seen in my lifetime. I'm also happy to say that at least among my US friends I can count those who are still regular tobacco smokers on both hands (before the bans I'd guess nearly half the younger people I knew in the US were at least social smokers, making the rest of us inadvertent secondhand smokers).

It wasn't until I was playing a tour in Paris that I found out that if you prefer non-smoking in Paris, the section starts about 2 miles outside the city limits when you hit open country, and there are no other people.

Even Paris banned smoking in bars/venues/etc in the late-2000s, and have even banned it recently in many public parks. Still lots of people smoking outside everywhere else there, more than I've seen in the US in a long time, and unfortunately nearly everyone I know there still smokes.

 

[Parzival]

I like the smoking bars. Gives you a natural fog machine type ambience

Funny story, we had a fill in drummer one time at a non smoking place. Old dude with long white hair and drum stool almost on the floor, a real old school banger. I liked him. I look over during the show and he’s just banging away with a lit smoke in his mouth. I looked over after the song and said, hey, we can’t smoke in here. He smiled and said, I don’t give a f***.

 

[51PRI]

Sad side effect: no more cool old guitars with cigarette smoke induced aging.

 

[pepj]

No for me.

 

[ChrisB2]

Illegal to smoke indoors here (Midwest US) but a few years back a few of the bars we played were breaking the rule and allowing people to smoke. Two guitar players and the singer smoked and I hated the smell on my clothes and gear, and being forced to shower when I got home, and I'm a former cig smoker. Those bars would get busted every six months or so, enforce the rules for a month or so and then back to smoking.

Different band now and so far no smoking encountered except outside during breaks. I like it.