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Thirsty’s Playground seems lonelier now. The cigarettes have been stubbed out, the ashtrays
relegated to the beer garden. The bar is still in its infancy, so its walls
haven’t heard enough stories to tell and its patrons aren’t
sufficiently seasoned to know whether they’ll weather blizzards and
thunderstorms in the beer garden and keep the place alive. Owner Perry Zubeck says his dream may last another 60
days — maybe. On a Thursday evening, “Dust in the Wind”
hums ominously from the speakers as word puzzles pop up on the flat screens
surrounding the empty bar. By 8:15 p.m., just eight patrons sit inside to guzzle
spirits. Friday isn’t much better. Zubeck can’t even draw a
crowd for a Sunday Chicago Bears game. Zubeck isn’t upset about the clean air that has
replaced thick clouds of cigarette smoke in his eight-month-old
establishment. He’s unnerved because, less than a mile away, in the
village of Jerome, attorney Kevin Davlin, brother of Springfield Mayor Tim
Davlin, is rebuilding the Barrel Head, a pub and eatery demolished by the
March tornadoes. Within the confines of the soon-to-be hotspot, smokers
will be able to puff until their lungs turn black. When Barrel Head opens its doors, Zubeck says,
Thirsty’s is
a goner.
“If it were a level playing field… but
with the ban that is in place, it creates an unfair advantage for Jerome,
Southern View, and Chatham,” Zubeck says. “They’re all
laughing at us: ‘Thank you, Springfield, for your stupid little
ban.’
“Once the Barrel Head goes up, we’re
done.”
Zubeck’s tried thinking outside the tavern to
recover from the hit Thirsty’s took when the City Council ordered all
indoor workplaces to put away their ashtrays on Sept. 17. Zubeck enclosed
his beer garden with tent walls to block winter’s cold air and
installed two propane heaters. But some barflies prefer to drink and smoke in the
comfort of their own homes rather than outdoors, hovering around a heater.
Springfield resident and smoker Jim Butler may spend happy hours on his
sofa if Thirsty’s closes its doors. Butler says he continues to come to Thirsty’s
because it’s a good location and he knows Zubeck. However, he says,
if Zubeck follows through on his threat to close at the end of next month,
he’ll “probably be spending a lot of time at home.”
Fewer and fewer smokers willing to stick it out are
seen in Zubeck’s watering hole. “We went through our slowest Friday since
we’ve been opened last weekend. I know we had our neighborhood
clientele. We had a lot of business from Jerome, and those people
aren’t coming out, Zubeck says. “They’re staying
home.”
Many Springfield bars report at least a 50 percent
drop in business, and their management says that either Springfield needs
to rethink its smoking ban or smoking across the state needs to be snuffed
out. There’s no denying that the hordes of
nonsmokers who pushed for clean air in local pubs and bars last fall
haven’t replaced the revenue provided by regulars who enjoy sucking
down a few cancer sticks with their spirits. Newt’s Raceway owner Larry Baskett Jr. can
attest that the nonsmokers didn’t make good on their guarantee. “There’s no revenue; they’re not
coming in,” Baskett says. “We heard all about [how] the
[non]smokers are going to come to our bar — and nothing. They
haven’t showed up. I know I’m not the only one that’s in
this crisis.”
The months leading up to the day the smoking ban went
into effect were fairly quiet. After the Legislature amended the state’s 1989
Illinois Clean Indoor Air Act, in May 2005, to empower local governments to
impose smoking bans, Springfield Ward 10 Ald. Bruce Strom took up the
cause. In August, the 36 organizations that make up Smoke Free Springfield
released the findings of a poll showing that 65 percent of people in
Springfield wanted a total smoking ban. At two public hearings last fall, a smattering of
smokers got up and talked about their civil liberties; bar owners let their
lobbyist, Steve Riedl of the Illinois Licensed Beverage Association, do
most of the talking. But it was the nonsmokers and health community who
were fired up.
A comprehensive ordinance drafted by Strom in
November 2005 seemed destined for certain passage, but in the weeks before
the council was scheduled to vote, a fellow Republican, Ward 1 Ald. Frank
Edwards withdrew his support. “Wouldn’t you think that the business
owner knows his clientele? And if he is telling me that this is his
livelihood and his investment, don’t you think we ought to listen to
those people?” Edwards told Illinois
Times last fall. Ultimately Strom’s ordinance failed. However,
Mayor Davlin introduced a bill identical to Strom’s, and it passed in
January. Smoking is a hot topic in Illinois and around the
country. Since Springfield passed its no-smoking law, similar legislation
has been proposed or gone on the books in dozens of towns, including
Champaign-Urbana, Bloomington-Normal, and Chicago. In February, state Rep. Annazette Collins, D-Chicago,
introduced a bill to prohibit smoking in all Illinois workplaces. For
Collins, whose daughter has asthma, the issue was a personal one. “When you go out, you can’t enjoy
dinner, you can’t enjoy anything, because of all of the smoke
everywhere. For people who are already sick, if you’re around all
that cigarette smoke, you’re never going to get better,” she
says. And members of the pro-smoking lobby, who have long
argued that no hard evidence exists to prove that secondhand smoke is bad
for people, were dealt a major blow when, on June 27, U.S. Surgeon General
Richard H. Carmona released a comprehensive report concluding that
“there is no risk-free level of exposure to secondhand smoke.”
It didn’t stop proponents of public smoking from combating smoking
bans in Illinois, though. Ten days after the Springfield went smoke-free, the
ILBA commissioned a survey that found that 54 percent of area voters
wouldn’t mind an easement to allow smoking in bars and in private
clubs such as the VFW and American Legion. Riedl, the ILBA executive director, says that bar
owners, who claim to have lost more than half their business, need relief.
“Smokers tend to either just quit going out or they retire to private
residential venues,” he says. But Strom stands by his position that the issue is
about health and not “whether somebody is making a few dollars or
not.” He believes that it’s too early to gauge the
ordinance’s economic impact. Besides, the alderman says, the
economies of other communities where smoking bans have been implemented
have done just fine, so why would Springfield’s be any different? “What causes them to go under may be because
they are so resistant to the whole notion of being smoke-free that they
don’t market themselves correctly in this kind of economic
environment,” Strom says. Ward 3 Ald. Frank Kunz is feeling bar owners’
pain. “I’m self-employed, so I know what a 3 percent drop does
to a business,” Kunz says. Kunz, who voted against the ban, has introduced an
ordinance that would enable any business in Springfield that bars its doors
to people younger than 18 to permit smoking. The public-affairs committee of the City Council will
consider the ordinance on Monday, Nov. 20, and although it’s unlikely
that Kunz will have the votes he needs on the full council for it to pass,
he believes that it’s the right thing to do. “I’ve lost many a vote 9-1,” he
says. “I don’t think it’s the government’s business
to tell private businesses what to do. I don’t like zero-tolerance
policies; there’s got to be some room for compromise in
America.”
One day, it may all be moot. Strom addressed the
concerns of ILBA members — who showed up in force at last
week’s council meeting for what was planned as a silent protest
— by saying, “Perhaps we should all join together and lobby the
state Legislature so that we get a comprehensive statewide
ordinance.”
He noted that voters in three states — Arizona,
Ohio, and Nevada — had agreed to ballot initiatives on Election Day
banning smoking in one form or another. Earlier this year, state
legislatures in Virginia and Maryland flirted with the idea of imposing
bans there, but anti-smoking bills in both of those states were rejected. Currently 474 municipalities, 18 states, Puerto Rico,
and Washington, D.C. prohibit smoking in workplaces, bars, restaurants, and
other places, and the number is growing. State Rep. Collins says that her comprehensive
proposal, H.B. 4338, is needed to address “a patchwork of laws”
governing smoking in the state. Hers, like Springfield’s ordinance,
excuses private residences, except those that serve as home-based
businesses; child-care, adult-care, and health-care facilities; hotel and
motel rooms; and retail tobacco stores. H.B. 4338 does not make allowances
for stage performances with smoking scenes. “If I had it my way, you wouldn’t
even be able to smoke in the park,” she says. “When people walk
in front of you and they’re smoking, the smoke still goes right in
your face.”
It’s doubtful that the Legislature will pass,
or even vote on, H.B. 4338 during this year’s veto session, which
began Tuesday. Collins says she’s about 16 votes short of the support
needed for passage, with most of the resistance coming from downstate
legislators. State Rep. Raymond Poe, of Springfield, says that
although he hasn’t read the Collins bill and supports local property
rights, he agrees with the need for a statewide ban, at least in theory. “I’m not a drinker or a smoker, but
I sure like to eat,” Poe says. But for him to support any smoking legislation, he
says, the bill must contain language that includes the city of Chicago.
Collins’ measure exempts cities with populations greater than
500,000, even though Chicago has passed a citywide smoking ordinance. “I’m getting tired of legislating for
everybody else in the state. If it doesn’t include Chicago, I’m
not going to vote for it,” Poe says.
For the time being, bar owners in Springfield are
just going to have to wait out the drought. The Smoke Free Springfield coalition isn’t
going to pick up its lobbying efforts of the state lawmakers until the
regular session convenes, after the first of the year. Kunz’s
ordinance will probably go down in flames, and Edwards has jettisoned plans
to draft an ordinance exempting private clubs from the ban. For his part, Mayor Tim Davlin hasn’t seemed
interested in rolling back the ban. In July he maneuvered to beat down a
legal challenge by Riedl on behalf of the ILBA. In the meantime, some taverns are surviving on drink
specials — and a little creativity. Teri Litwiller, manager of the Forty-Niner Bye-Bye,
says her bar wasn’t as devastated as other places but has begun to
feel the pinch in its pocketbook as the evening crowd has dwindled. “Those people are leaving after one
drink,” Litwiller says. The management of the Forty-Niner installed a few
heaters, added some tables, and mounted a television in an attempt to bring
the bar feeling into the beer garden. The management of Boone’s Uptown Grill had the
same idea, adding some warmth to the sizable outdoor seating area. Owner
Karey Wanless finds it difficult to tell how much her business has suffered
since the smoking restrictions have been enforced because she and her
brother, Steve Burg, took over the bar less than a year ago. She has
noticed that her smoking crowd is gone. Just in case they come back, Wanless is making sure
that they won’t lose their seats at the bar when they step outside
for a drag. She doles out seat-saver cards, good for a few minutes, to
smokers heading outdoors. Many Springfield drinking spots don’t have the
luxury of shooing smokers into the great outdoors. The management of the
Brewhaus thought that a few tables on the sidewalk in front of the bar
might entice some of the lunch crowd back to eat, drink, and smoke, but he
says the city nixed the idea because of the Brewhaus’ status as a
tavern. Mike Parkes, proprietor of the Brewhaus, says that
business is way down, despite his establishment’s location in the
heart of Springfield’s tourist district. He rescheduled the jazz band
from their usual Tuesday-night slot to a Monday happy-hour gig in the hope
that patrons will come back for the music and perhaps stick around for a
“nicotini” — nicotine-infused vodka. Parkes says the
mint-flavored cocktail is a popular addition to the list of libations. Such creativity is what it will take for bars to
survive. “I don’t think we’re in the
business running people out of business or seeing lives destroyed because
of laws we’ve passed,” Edwards says of the City Council. But there will never be a consensus, he adds, on how
to tweak Springfield’s ban to make it fair for everyone. “This smoking ban has pitted people against
each other,” Edwards says. “I think the community is getting worn
out.”
Contact Marissa Monson at mmonson@illinoistimes.com and R.L. Nave at rnave@illlinoistimes.com.
This article appears in Nov 9-15, 2006.
