Arkansas Blog

Yeah, they're gonna mess around and get it banned in the 21+ bars too. Gotta treat everybody the same.

Told you so... just wait a couple of more week until the statewide ban goes into effect.

Here comes the Cavalry riding up in a cloud of smoke! Anti-smoking Nazis be very afraid!

Neanderthals. They don't mind selling a product that kills brain cells but they will damn well stand up for the right to turn lung cells malignant. They've been hitting too much of their own sauce.

If you don't like the smoke, don't go to the bar.

While I may not like having to deal with a smoke filled bar, it is still wrong the way that the rules were changed midstream on the owners of bars in this city. They deserve a fair shake, this thing went into effect a couple of years ago and suddenly telling bar owners that people can't smoke isn't right.

The economic definition of a bar will be moot after Act 8 takes effect on July 21st as the state?s definition of required smoke free space takes precedence. Under this legislation smoking will be permitted only if all employees and patrons are over the age of 21 regardless of how many chips and dips a business will sell. The 70%-30% arbitrary decision the police made, not the ordinance, will no longer matter.

Incidentally, the After Thought thread went away before I could provide someone?s request for a citation on the 50% increased risk of lung cancer for workers in smoking bars. That would be the Journal of the American Medical Association 1993 July 28; 270(4) : 490-3. Workers in smoking bars are exposed to 300% to 600% more of the toxins from tobacco smoke than those office workers where smoking is allowed. I know there is a group in NW Arkansas doing particulate level research. It should be interesting to see how those results pan out in the study.

P! It's great to hear from you! Alfred must have pushed the Bat Button to alert you to a smoking thread underway.

No one can whip out a statistic faster than ole P baby. I'm not sure I can believe in any study made pre 9-11 though. 9-11 changed the world according to the Decider and by now the Journal of the American Medical Association need to take into account all the wind borne dust blowing our way from depleted uranium (DU) shells the US and UK are using in the war in Iraq.

Think of it, pretending the war for oil in Iraq will end some day, for decades after the end Iraq kids and US veterans will continue to get sick and die due to these radioactive fragments we've blanked the country with.

And Bush has caused a 100% increased in our risk of being invaded by 80% of the rest of the world that has grown to hate us over the last 5 years. So I plan to do a whole lot more drinking and smoking in those moot bars you're talking about in the near future as we wait for Pearl Harbor II.

You're smoking prohibition is going to work just as well as it's granddaddy did back in 1920, when the Eighteenth Amendment went into effect and demon rum was the enemy. Not all of us are sheep easily penned. We're Americans, we're ornery, we don't like fences, we resist the one big eyeball in the sky telling us what we will or will not do.

But gee, P...it's great to hear from you again. And best of luck with your particulate level study, whoever is paying you better give you a raise for having to deal with such mind-numbing materials.

Oh, and you should get out more, I've never been in a bar in Arkansas where the employees and patrons were ever under the age of 21, so I moot you and raise you a moot.

DBI, My Man! You have a great point. The shameless abuses these fascists are heaping on the environment, in particular re particulates, probably have thrown a curve to the ratios. I been telling you tobacco put these bastards in DC. They also quashed OSHA efforts at secondhand smoke regulation in 2001.

Act 8 is now where near perfect protecting the public health but it?s a start. As for getting out more, the years I spent working for tips enhanced my misanthropy to the point where I?m not fit company in public. I also learned it is much safer to drink at home.

I don?t know what pubs you frequent but you might notice a few older dishwashers and bussers in late July. They make minimum wage. Servers do not. Waitrons are working at practical slave wages anyway and taxed at 10% of their sales whether they make that in gratuity or not. Of course I know their eyes light up when they see you belly up to the bar. Quick w a bev nap and a light. Checking those pre linguistic cues to anticipate your every need cause they know the Inch man will tip!

I tip like a mofo and still can't get laid. As I recall from my 6 or 8 hour PAY YOUR SALES TAXES class in Little Rock back in 1987, a Bar bar was not allowed to ever have anyone employed for any reason that was under the age of 21. I assume they might have changed that rule but I doubt it. I had enough trouble with 21 and up employees, no babies for me, law or no law. I also tend to think strippers should be 21 and soldiers should be 21. Single malt scotch should be at least 16 years old. And a girl is not a woman until she is 35.

In restaurants.....I'm guessing people can be underage and bus the tables, but don't think that has been the case in modern times for Bar bars...alas a dying breed.

I yield to your superior expertise, DBI. I never worked in a stand alone bar. I will share an unwritten rule that my dear friend who at least once worked at the Afterthought lived by: ?Never fuck the customers.? Sorry, but thanks for the tip. Consider your Karmic reward as more valuable than a fling w a moonlighting cocktail tail. Somehow I figure you maintain a certain fidelity and integrity anyway.

When I bought the bar after the long time owner died suddenly I inherited his waitress. A fine looking gal a year older than me. She taught me a very valuable but harsh lesson, don't ride your plow horse or work your riding horse. I think another way to say that is don't get your meat where you earn your bread.

It was a year of ecstasy AND hell, but after an expense paid trip to the nut ward and 9 weeks paid vacation, she drifted off into the sunset. I always have to learn my lessons the hard way....like fish-hooks thru the eyes. But I never made that mistake again.

I live at 80582 Commonwealth in Seattle. Been up here before?