The smoky sky is falling...

Friday night I started my shift as I always do: sitting on my cooler, reading the blade, waiting for customers to arrive. I stumbled upon this article about the closing of Lizard Lounge.

Now I've never been a huge fan of Lizard to begin with so I'm not gonna shed any tears, but something just doesn't add up with Mark Lee's story. Even if he's absolutely certain that the smoking ban will hurt his business beyond the point of making a profit, why close eight months before the damn thing even takes effect? Is he really that fired up about the cause that he's willing to give up 8 months of profit to make a point? I doubt it.... The only reason I can think of is that even without a smoking ban in effect he's not making any $$ - if you're going out of business anyway it's much easier to have someone to blame than to admit your own business was a failure.

But whatever, I for one applaud the smoking ban and can't wait til it takes effect. It's been long overdue. It'll be nice to finish a shift without burning contact lenses and blackened lungs. It'll be nice to wake up the morning after a shift and not cough up phelm from all the crap I breathed in the night before. Is it going to hurt business???? It's possible, but I'm not all that worried. If anything, I think it'll hurt the straight bars far more than the gay ones. From a gay bar perspective the only other option is Freddies in Virginia and it takes a lot to get a gay city boy to cross that river. People are still going to go out because, bottom line, our people love to get drunk and love to get laid.

If anything, it'll actually be interesting to see how the ban effects Halo. I know a couple people (myself included) that really only go there because it's smoke free. Now that my favorite bartender there is gone and all the bars will be smoke free - what reason will I have to go there anymore???

Who knows what'll happen....maybe Mark Lee is right and business will decrease, tips will be lost, the bar will close and i'll resort to turning tricks on the corner. But for now I'm thinking I've read this story before...