Non-Scientific Smoking Ban Study

Joanna and I went to two bars tonight that we've never been to just to get out of the house. The first one we went to was completely empty. I mean *completely* empty. We were the only people there. This was about 9:00. We were chatting with the bartender lady and Joanna said, "Not too busy in here". The lady responded, "We're usually packed on Fridays. 40-50 people at least. Lines for the pool tables... Tonight, we've had a lot of people come in and ask if they can smoke. I tell them no and they leave. I thought I'd at least see our 3 or 4 regulars."

Two really hammered guys came in as we were leaving saying that some other place we'd never heard of (Sparky's) was allowing their patrons to smoke even though they knew they were breaking the law. These guys said it was the busiest Sparky's has ever been and people were telling them, "Nobody else on this street would let us smoke, so we came here."

The second bar we went to has a jazz/blues band that plays every weekend. (Really cool place, we're going to definitely go back.) Anyway, there was a constant throng of people right outside the door smoking and shivering. People coming in had to thread their way through the smoking crowd. (Even though this is technically illegal -- no possibility can exist of smoke getting in a door or window.) First of all, I thought to myself "Can you imagine a blues joint without smoke?" Next I thought up something else looking at the crowd of smokers: I wonder if owners are going to be allowing people to go outside and smoke. What if people leave without paying their bill? Granted, it probably depends more on the type of place. I imagine a few college bars will be having to put some tabs "on the house" if they tell people to go outside and move so many feet away from the door.

As the title of this post states, this certainly isn't a definitive study describing the effects of the law so far... I'm just posting what I saw at two places tonight.