I'm probably going to lose the favor of many of our smoking fans but I have to admit that it was so nice to play in a smoke free club.  Usually, by the third set, my eyes are burning and my voice is straining but last night, I felt like I could have sung another 4 hours.  I have to say, Putters has handled the Ohio smoking ban very well.  They've created special areas outside to accommodate their smokers and most people don't seem to mind. 

It sucks coming home from a gig, unloading all of your gear, and then having to strip off your smoke bomb clothes and hang them outside so they don't stink up the house, followed by a shower so your sheets don't end up smelling like an ashtray.  All of that may not seem like a big deal, but at 4am when you are dead tired and you just want to go to sleep, it's definitely no fun.

It's a tough line to walk as a band.  All of us really appreciate performing in a smoke free environment.  However, we've all been doing this long enough to know, that's just the bar environment and if you don't like it, don't be in a band and play in bars.  It's hard to balance your own wants with your overall convictions sometimes.  I would love it if the whole world were smoke free.  I lost my mother to lung cancer from her 2 pack a day habit and I think it's a vile, dirty, unattractive habit.  However, I also believe in the constitution and feel like people should have the right to establish a business that allows and welcomes smokers.  No one is forcing me to play in those places and no one is forcing customers to go to those places.  My feelings about the smoking ban are mixed and I am cautious about giving the government too much power to make choices for people.

It will be interesting to see where the smoking ban goes.  Putters enforced it as soon as it became law.  Other places we play are holding out until they see if it's going to be enforced or not.  I think that as soon as one club gets slapped with a heavy fine or a lawsuit, then everyone will quickly get with the program and start banning it.  The question is, who will the example be made of.  One club owner told me that if he can't smoke in his own place, he'd close.  When the law was voted in, he did just that.

Most of our fans are non-smokers so we do pretty well with our crowd in the smoke free places.  Actually, we probably bring more people to the smoke free gigs than to the smoky gigs.  But many club owners still swear that their business would drop dramatically if they enforced the smoking ban.  I'm not so sure I agree.  A lot of the people who come to our smoke free gigs are the kind of people that would probably go to bars if it weren't for the smoke.  I think that when the bars finally all enforce the ban, their business may drop some at first, but you will see a new group of patrons start to grow.  30% of Americans are smokers.  That means 70% are not.  Based on those statistics, the largest patron base is among the non-smokers, not the smokers.  It seems like a no-brainer for clubs, but then it's easy for me to preach when my livelihood isn't tied to the number of customers in my bar.  I know many bars barely break even as it is without introducing a risk like the smoking ban.

So, the selfish side of me says "Thanks Putters for enforcing the smoking ban" and the side that wants to continue to get gigs in clubs around here says "be careful and handle it smartly."  There are too many alternatives for bar goers these days.

~MD