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  • From: "Jeremy Blair" <jerblar AT gmail.com>
  • To: "RTP-area local music and culture" <ch-scene AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: Local 506 vs. Smoking
  • Date: Wed, 22 Aug 2007 09:32:02 -0400

Yes, potpourri and scented candles please.

On 8/22/07, grady <grady AT ibiblio.org> wrote:
>
> You're right, it's only over the past half-dozen years that local club
> owners have finally woken up to the fact that 80% of the population are
> nonsmokers. It's also true that over the past 10 years the correlation
> between secondhand smoke and numerous health issues has been proven so
> definitively that many states have banned smoking in *all* public
> places, including bars.
>
> Since the NC legislature hasn't been able to get a similar ban out of
> committee yet (though the support for it grows every year), local
> clubowners have made the economic decision to focus on the 80% of their
> potential audience who don't smoke, rather than the 20% who do, in
> addition to the 100% of their employees whose health is negatively
> impacted by breathing all the secondhand smoke (including those of them
> who are smokers . . . working a 6-hour shift in a smoky bar is like
> adding a handful of unfiltered Luckies to your daily intake, and most
> smokers I know are trying to cut down, not ramp up).
>
> I've been to shows all over, in a variety of venues, and I can tell you
> that the only thing a rock club is "supposed" to have is a band onstage,
> playing. Some of them have swank velvet curtains and weird art on the
> walls. Some of them are more or less outdoors under a tin roof. Some of
> them are restaurants during the day. Some of them don't even rise to the
> level of "stage, bar, concrete slab for a floor" . . . they look more
> like "abandoned warehouse." Some of them have tables and chairs, and
> cocktail waitresses, like a jazz club. Some of them are in 100-year-old
> union halls that don't look like they've changed since the 50s.
>
> My experience has been that the ambience of the club doesn't suffer for
> lack of a thick cloud of cigarette smoke . . . and in fact, if a
> clubowner realizes that the place isn't going to be instantly funked-up
> by smoke, they sometimes do *more* decor-wise than they otherwise would.
>
> Would you miss the Cradle bathrooms too, if they got cleaned up?
>
> xo
>
> Ross
>
> Kevin Browning wrote:
> > I could be very wrong but I don't remember this being a historically big
> issue. It seems that only over the past six or seven years have some clubs
> been adopting no smoking policies. Places like the Cradle and the 506, in
> my eyes, have the basic rock club set-up: stage, bar, concrete slab for a
> floor. These places are supposed to smell like beer and stale cigarette
> smoke. Are clubs going to begin using potpourri or scented candles in the
> future? Now, I say this in a joking way but there is sincerity in my words.
> >
> > Bottom line is that I appreciate the 506 trying to cater to both
> groups of people by limiting the smoking to one room only. I mean, when I
> go to the Cradle I have no problem smoking out back. I think that it makes
> me laugh more than it irks me. Maybe we should make some clubs alcohol-free
> so that I don't have drunk assholes bumping into me all the time and
> spilling beer on my shoes.
> > -Kevin.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > grady <grady AT ibiblio.org> wrote:
> > In the past month, I have attended [multiple] shows at the Cat's
> Cradle,
> > Bull City Headquarters, and the Cave. I haven't been to any shows at
> > Local 506. Saturday night I walked up to 506 from the Cave and sat
> > around outside talking to some friends in the between-bands downtime,
> > but then once Filthybird went on, I had to decide between seeing a band
> > I really liked in nasty smoky Local 506, or walking back to the Cave to
> > see Twilighter (a band I like, but not as much as Filthybird) in
> > smoke-free comfort, and I chose the Cave.
> >
> > So I think anything you were to do to mitigate the smoke would be a very
> > good thing, although I'm not sure about this half-measure you're
> > proposing, which would necessitate running a smoke-gauntlet to
> > enter/leave the club, to use the bathroom, or to buy drinks. It's
> > possible to do all 3 of those at the Cave, plus watch the band, without
> > ever going into the smoking back room.
> >
> > But I'd at least be willing to give it a try. Be aware, though, that in
> > the past your perception of the smokiness of the club has differed
> > sharply from mine, a fact that I've chalked up to your senses having
> > been dulled from all the secondhand smoke ;-)
> >
> > What direction does the ventilation move in Local 506? I should know
> > this already, but I don't. If the outside-air fans at either end aren't
> > set up to pull air from the back alley and push it out onto Franklin,
> > you'll need to change that . . .
> >
> > If you're going to do anything that involves changing the smoking
> > situation at 506, you'll have to do a couple of things if you intend for
> > the experiment to be semi-valid:
> >
> > 1) publicize the change thoroughly to the large community of folks who
> > might be attending shows were it not for the smoke (and keep in mind
> > that they may not even be aware that's why they aren't attending shows .
> > . . it may be more like "I'm too tired to go to a show on a weeknight
> > because I feel like crap all the next day," not realizing that it was
> > the smoke that was primarily responsible for that feeling of assy-ness)
> >
> > 2) wait long enough for the word to trickle out, and for the smokers to
> > adjust, before declaring the experiment a success/failure
> >
> > Keep us posted!
> >
> > Ross
> >
> > local506 AT gmail.com wrote:
> >> Although this discussion died down on here, it's still something I've
> >> been battling on a regular basis at the club. Recently, by request of
> >> the artist, we tried restricting smoking to the bar-area only, while
> >> no smoking was allowed in the room where the artist performed. And it
> >> worked really well - I got several comments about how (somehow!) the
> >> smoke itself didn't infiltrate the smoke-less room (or likely, it did
> >> so at ceiling-level, not head-level!) And this show was well-
> >> attended, over 100 people.
> >>
> >> Anyway, I'm seriously considering this as a permanent policy, but
> >> looking for feedback before making this decision.
> >>
> >> glenn / local 506
> >>
> >> ps: Of course, all Summer I've been seriously considering adding wine,
> >> updating our Reverbnation page, taking a vaction, among other things,
> >> and they haven't happened yet (but Summer's not over!)
> >>
> >> -- ch-scene: the list that mirrors alt.music.chapel-hill --
> >> http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/ch-scene
> >>
> >>
> > -- ch-scene: the list that mirrors alt.music.chapel-hill --
> > http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/ch-scene
> >
> > -- ch-scene: the list that mirrors alt.music.chapel-hill --
> > http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/ch-scene
> >
> >
> -- ch-scene: the list that mirrors alt.music.chapel-hill --
> http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/ch-scene
>




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