www.billboard.com: When Bruce Finkelman opened the Empty Bottle in 1993, he smoked cigarettes, like many of his customers. It was part of his vision for the Chicago rock club: “The small, dark, smoky jazz room or rock ‘n’ roll club. Dingy. That really romantic view of the door opening up and smoke billowing out.” But like every other venue in Chicago and just about everywhere else, Empty Bottle has been smoke-free for decades — and Finkelman, now a non-smoking marathon runner, can’t imagine it any other way. “Even if I smell smoke,” the club’s owner says today, “I’m like, ‘Ugh.'”
3 comments:
I think this article offered a super interesting perspective, especially from Bruce Finkelman (who was a music club owner and former smoker), and how perspective can be changed with time and new found knowledge. I for one really do not enjoy the smell of smoke and will generally avoid venues where a lot of people are smoking inside. I thought it was really interesting the correlation between the rise in revenue at live music venues and the smoking bans. I do however wonder if correlation is all it is and maybe it also has more to do with making ticket sales online more mainstream. I also wonder how size, scale, and crowd type influence the enforcement of these smoking bands. I remember seeing a band at the Vegas Sphere with a crowd culture known for often being stoners and there was definitely a lot of smoking, however I think it was less enforced due to the sheer scale of the venue.
You’re never going to stop smoking at concerts. Indoor smoking bans across the country and inside music venues have only changed when and how smokers smoke, not whether or not they do at all. As someone who loves live music, I’ve been to shows where other concert goers have lit up cigarettes and joints right in front of security staff without the employee lifting a finger. I think it’s interesting to hear the experience of a venue owner, but I don’t think that his opinions and policies, the legal changes around smoking, or other people’s stigma could ever stop people from trying to smoke at a show, either by switching to a vape or smoke-less product, or by doing it regardless of rules in place. A lot of live music is tied up with drug and substance culture. Most concerts have a bar or place where viewers can buy a drink, and the image of a smoking, stoned rock and roll guitar hero lives immortally in our cultural imagination. As long as people treat live music like a drug (heightened experience as it is) a cloud of smoke will continue to follow it wherever it goes.
It always shocks me a bit when I remember that it used to be a normal thing for people to smoke indoors. Such as at restaurants or lecture halls, but it's never really correlated in my brain when it comes to concert spaces which is intriguing but also very telling. I also never really understood why smoking was banned in concert spaces after the indoor smoking ban, because I haven't seen it stressed too much at concerts. What is really interesting to me about this article is that it states that the indoor smoking ban resulted in a positive revenue increase which I would not have guessed ringing true. I think it would be a little bit crazy for someone to decide to not go to a concert just because there would be smoking inside, and I'm positive that that hasn't really been a key factor in ticket sales or the stake a person lays on if they should go to a concert or not. But I digress.
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