to_quit_smoking: New post PLS RT! QUIT SMOKING! Smoking Ban In Public Places - link #stopsmoking
about 15 minutes ago
PhoQueen: Smoking Ban Proposed in Cabell County link
about 30 minutes ago
webbkyle: I like this: Sask will ban smoking in cars with kids: link
about 37 minutes ago
make100today:
about 42 minutes ago
halliwellni: New blog post: Indy smoking ban increases heart attacks link
about 59 minutes ago
Follow us on Twitter ...
 |
Landmark Lanes', located underground on Farwell Avenue, is known as a haven for smokers and smoky nights. |
 | By Maureen Post   OnMilwaukee.com Staff Writer E-mail author | Author bio More articles by Maureen Post |
| Published Aug. 21, 2009 at 4:29 p.m. |
|
We've rolled into the final year of smoky bars and cigarettes over beers. At least indoors that is.
The impending smoking ban (the legislation bans smoking in virtually all workplaces, including taverns, bars and restaurants) goes into effect July 5, 2010 and so with less than a year left to light up, Milwaukeeans have a limited time to embrace and enjoy their tobacco filled evenings.
I'm not a smoker, never have been, and while I am unquestionably in favor of the smoking-ban, I've never been overly bothered by smoke in bars.
Maybe I have a physiological immunity preventing irritated eyes or perhaps I'm not being realistic about the long term affect on my health, but smoke isn't something keeping me out of certain establishments or dramatically tainting an evening out with friends.
However, I hold a precise and admittedly unfair distinction about where smoking should and should not occur.
I've accepted that when I go out for a cocktail, smoke is often a side-note of the evening but I have absolutely no tolerance for smoking in restaurants. Whether it's a coffee shop, café or even 24-hour diner like Denny's or George Webb's, I will avoid the smoking section like the plague.
That being said, I'm more than thrilled that I can come to expect something different starting next summer.
But in the meantime, there are certain Milwaukee establishments that have based their existence on the smoking crowd and for them, this year will be a farwell of tradition.
Bowling alleys in particular, are known for the cloud of haze billowing out the front door. Bowlers who frequent Landmark Lanes, Bay View Bowl and Red Carpet Lanes do so with the promise of a beer and cigarette in hand. Potentially a few of the smokiest buildings in town, these alleys are probably the most adverse to the changes the smoking ban promises.
And of course there are the local corner bars. The signature of any Milwaukee neighborhood, these bars usually draw regulars who routinely stop in for an after work beer and smoke.
Typically not updated and foregoing any trendy nightlife spectacle, these bars embrace the monotony of simplicity and disdain change.
Milwaukee's sports bars are another institution prone to long smoky afternoons and evenings. Places like Buck Bradley's, Fanatics, Leff's Lucky Town and Rookies all draw a crowd of fans looking to spend hour upon hour watching any number of local and national games. Eating, drinking and smoking, these establishments have long offered fans all the conveniences to make a day indoors fun and satisfying.
So with less than a year to go, which bars do you think will feel the greatest impact? Which bars will you visit to enjoy one final smoke? Use the Talkback feature below to voice your favorite smoke filled saloon.
|
19 comments about this article. Post a comment / write a review. |
Recent Talkbacks ...
Posted by marbee on Sept. 10, 2009 at 9:12 a.m. (report)
Some people just can't fathom a sign over a door that indicates it is smoking or non-smoking! They NEED the government to dictate to an owner how he must run HIS business. They deliberately blur the difference between public property (tax payer funded) and public place (privately owned yet open to the public). The public has no money or sweat invested and is accountable for nothing, including failure. If a bar fails, the anti's would have to go elsewhere. There was never a law that said a bar had to allow smoking, there shouldn't be one that says they can't on private property! If you give away someone else's property rights you should have no right to vote in the first place!
| Rate this: |
Posted by marbee on Sept. 10, 2009 at 9:07 a.m. (report)
All the nannies in the world would not intimidate me into using pharmaceutical nicotine or drugs that are proven more harmful than smoking. If smokers want to quit they will. I don't want behavior modification to profit bug pharma with their cessation products. I would not account for my actions to strangers. I don't want the government trampling my friend's property rights. We used to smoke while in the hospital. Shocked? You have been socially engineered to the detriment of freedom with lies construed by bug pharma's money! Here is a link that actually works: www.forces.org or www.thetruthisalie. com.
| Rate this: |
Posted by marbee on Sept. 10, 2009 at 9:05 a.m. (report)
Obama's child health insurance bill with a 2,200% tax increase, hit one of the poorest groups in the entire country, people who have to roll their own cigarettes. If states want to be moral, they would stop this kind of taxation on the poor! The SCHIP bill raised taxes on loose tobacco from $1.0969 a pound to $24.62 a pound!" If everyone stopped smoking, who would they target next? I bet if everyone's property taxes went up 2000% you would hear some major screaming! So where is this money now! What happened to this bill and the money it's raking in?
| Rate this: |
Posted by marbee on Sept. 10, 2009 at 9:00 a.m. (report)
I read an article about a boy that OD'd on Nicorette gum given at school without parental knowledge. So, very quietly, pharmaceutical nicotine is pushed on 12 year old kids. If anyone doubted that the anti-smoking crusade leads back to Johnson & Johnson, the cat is totally out of the bag!
| Rate this: |
Posted by marbee on Sept. 10, 2009 at 8:59 a.m. (report)
Google worlds oldest smokers, you'll find ALL the worlds oldest people are or were smokers! The benefits of smoking tobacco have been common knowledge for centuries, and big pharma knows this and would wipe out the competition. From sharpening mental acuity to maintaining optimal weight, the relatively small risks of smoking have always been outweighed by the substantial improvement to mental and physical health. Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, Tourette's Syndrome, even schizophrenia and cocaine addiction are disorders that are alleviated by tobacco. Tobacco shows promise to prevent colon and prostate cancer and the endorsement for smoking tobacco by the medical establishment is good news for smokers and non-smokers alike. The revelation that tobacco is good for you is trumped by the pharmaceutical industry's plan to substitute the natural and relatively inexpensive tobacco plant with their overpriced and ineffective nicotine substitutions with 98% failure rates for quitting for 1 year or more. Big pharma has spent billions demonizing the pleasure of smoking using social engineering and profits from bans that destroys private businesses. Follow the money!
| Rate this: |
Show me the other 14 Talkbacks
| Top Clicks | Top Searches | Most Talkbacks |
- What's the point of a smoking ban if you can ignore it?
- On the town in Milwaukee: Continued Thanksgiving comfort
- Packers bar guide
- Diablos Rojos Restaurant Group goes smoke free until 10 p.m.
- On the town: Locales for Milwaukee's workforce
- Milwaukee heat index: September 2009
- After renovation, Blu will be smoke-free
- Waving the flag for free speech
- Leff's customers are enjoying the great outdoors
- On the town in Milwaukee: Mid-summer round up
