Cigarette smoke

Chabenda

This weekend the Tetesticles played at a golf club in Zimbabwe. The area that we were in was quite cold (by Tete standards it was arctic) and nearly all of the windows were closed in the clubhouse. We are used to out door venues in Tete and haven't played indoors for a long while. What we were not prepared for was the number of people smoking inside the club house. My band mate smokes and I am an ex-smoker but still keep an ash tray in my office for smoking clients. I am not anti-cigarettes but very glad that I eventually managed to kick the addiction. By 9.30 we were feeling dizzy and my throat was raw. The air was toxic. When we finished up our clothes and gear stank. I woke up with an unjustified babelaas.

The 'atmosphere' definitely had an effect on our ability to perform to our best. I would imagine that SA has some fairly rigid rules regarding smoking in public places. I must say, as harsh as it is for the smokers among us, the banning of smoking in such public places is of extreme benefit for all of us in terms of our health. I reckon that babelaas' of today are a lot milder due to this.

I am happy to report that, from what we experienced, there are a number of great people, from all races, in Zim's smaller towns who get together and have a great time. Whilst there were police at least every ten kms along the road, we had no trouble and were treated very courteously when we were stopped. We were still very happy to get back to Moz!!

vic

Hi Chabs....sorry to hear about your less than satisfying experience ☹ Here in SA there is just about everywhere a ban on smoking inside buildings. The laws are very strict and most people adhere to these.
I played a gig about a year ago where smoking was allowed inside the venue...it was a big private party....but the venue was very well ventilated I may add and only a few smoked inside anyway, so it wasn't a big problem. But I agree...it is most inconsiderate to subject non-smokers to ciggie smoke.

And it's not so nice to play with one of those WW2 gas masks hey ! ? ....the vocals sound way too compressed !

Manfred-Klose

i once played a gig in a venue with no ventilation, and people smoke in there like its never going out of fashion, after my gig was done, i had to go and stand outside for a while to get my breath back, and i was sick for a week after that.

there is still alot of venues that people do smoke in. they are just too under the radar to for anyone to do anything about it.
but i have seen the police starting to hit these venues for that reason.

Bob-Dubery

Chabenda wrote By 9.30 we were feeling dizzy and my throat was raw. The air was toxic. When we finished up our clothes and gear stank. I woke up with an unjustified babelaas.

Makes you wonder how we survived all those years.

I sort of gave up smoking many years ago, but for some time after that I would cadge a smoke every now and then. Eventually I started noticing a pattern: If I went to cricket (which I did a lot back then) and had three beers I felt OK the next morning; But three beers and a cigarette and I often felt not so great. So I gave up scrounging as well.

guidothepimmp

Manfred Klose wrote
i once played a gig in a venue with no ventilation, and people smoke in there like its never going out of fashion, after my gig was done, i had to go and stand outside for a while to get my breath back, and i was sick for a week after that.

there is still alot of venues that people do smoke in. they are just too under the radar to for anyone to do anything about it.
but i have seen the police starting to hit these venues for that reason.

Ray

Ja, what we do on Fridays and Saturdays is find places that allow people to smoke and we go there and slap the okes around a bit. Then we call the cops and they come over and arrest them and throw them in the cells for the weekend - no bail, no bribe.

WTF has jacking each other off got to do with General Music?

Chabenda

Vic wrote
Hi Chabs....sorry to hear about your less than satisfying experience ☹ Here in SA there is just about everywhere a ban on smoking inside buildings. The laws are very strict and most people adhere to these.
I played a gig about a year ago where smoking was allowed inside the venue...it was a big private party....but the venue was very well ventilated I may add and only a few smoked inside anyway, so it wasn't a big problem. But I agree...it is most inconsiderate to subject non-smokers to ciggie smoke.

And it's not so nice to play with one of those WW2 gas masks hey ! ? ....the vocals sound way too compressed !

Ha ha! Vic - it depends how badly you play or how ugly you are!!

singemonkey

Live music venues tend to be pretty lax about smoking in my experience. Not sure how that all works. Can't last for long though. Eventually we'll have to say goodby to yellowed binding on old Les Pauls ?

coynegfsa

singemonkey wrote Eventually we'll have to say goodby to yellowed binding on old Les Pauls ?

"I didn't know you smoked."

"I don't. I'm just doing this to relic my guitar."

?

IceCreamMan

singemonkey wrote Live music venues tend to be pretty lax about smoking in my experience. Not sure how that all works. Can't last for long though. Eventually we'll have to say goodby to yellowed binding on old Les Pauls ?

this is my experience too.... most (if not all) of the live music venues I frequent allow smoking with no thought to the law....... an I guess this is how it should be ....I can choose to be there or not ...(I am a militant anti smoker by the way but enjoy live music so live with it)

Warren

Ray wrote Ja, what we do on Fridays and Saturdays is find places that allow people to smoke and we go there and slap the okes around a bit. Then we call the cops and they come over and arrest them and throw them in the cells for the weekend - no bail, no bribe.

WTF has jacking each other off got to do with General Music?

I must confess to not grasping what any of this means at all.

Psean

IceCreamMan wrote
singemonkey wrote Live music venues tend to be pretty lax about smoking in my experience. Not sure how that all works. Can't last for long though. Eventually we'll have to say goodby to yellowed binding on old Les Pauls ?
this is my experience too.... most (if not all) of the live music venues I frequent allow smoking with no thought to the law....... an I guess this is how it should be ....I can choose to be there or not ...(I am a militant anti smoker by the way but enjoy live music so live with it)

+1
Same here. So used to coming home stinking of smoke by now it's just part of the live music thing.

Bob-Dubery

IceCreamMan wrote
singemonkey wrote Live music venues tend to be pretty lax about smoking in my experience. Not sure how that all works. Can't last for long though. Eventually we'll have to say goodby to yellowed binding on old Les Pauls ?
this is my experience too.... most (if not all) of the live music venues I frequent allow smoking with no thought to the law....... an I guess this is how it should be ....I can choose to be there or not ...(I am a militant anti smoker by the way but enjoy live music so live with it)

I disagree. If you can sit through a movie show without smoking then you can sit through a live music show without smoking.

The key issue is the forcing of the habit and it's effects upon others. If I want to drink at a gig then I don't require the people sitting next to me to take a couple of sips of whatever it is I'm having. Why then should they have to put up with my cigarette smoke?

It also endangers the whole gig - including the performers and their payments. What happens if the police do apply the law and shut the event down. Do the performers then get paid? Well, if their name is "Metallica" they will have been paid in full in advance or have a good security. If their name is "Hellfire Blues Club" then they might be able to get their gear out before everything gets padlocked.

Explorerlover

Had the same issue in GC at the Metallica show this past weekend.

I smoke and I understand the craving but man, when you have that amount of people standing so close together, have some courtesy for the non smokers...especially when you start lighting your electric salad....

IceCreamMan

X-rated Bob wrote
IceCreamMan wrote
singemonkey wrote Live music venues tend to be pretty lax about smoking in my experience. Not sure how that all works. Can't last for long though. Eventually we'll have to say goodby to yellowed binding on old Les Pauls ?
this is my experience too.... most (if not all) of the live music venues I frequent allow smoking with no thought to the law....... an I guess this is how it should be ....I can choose to be there or not ...(I am a militant anti smoker by the way but enjoy live music so live with it)
I disagree. If you can sit through a movie show without smoking then you can sit through a live music show without smoking.

The key issue is the forcing of the habit and it's effects upon others. If I want to drink at a gig then I don't require the people sitting next to me to take a couple of sips of whatever it is I'm having. Why then should they have to put up with my cigarette smoke?

It also endangers the whole gig - including the performers and their payments. What happens if the police do apply the law and shut the event down. Do the performers then get paid? Well, if their name is "Metallica" they will have been paid in full in advance or have a good security. If their name is "Hellfire Blues Club" then they might be able to get their gear out before everything gets padlocked.

I will allow you to disagree....see that is my entire point....

I am an adult, I am capable of making my own decisions...is a publican wants to allow smoking at his venue he should be allowed to ..then hellfire blues club and metallica have the choice to play there or not as I have the choice to attend or not....

don't need no silly law to protect my lungs,,,quite capable of doing that myself ... esp as my experience is that it is generally allowed anyway.....maybe not at Richard thompsons shows though.... ?

Bob-Dubery

A publican has no more right to allow uncontrolled smoking at his premises than he does to sell drinks spiked with LSD or to provide powdered rhino horn for the patrons that would like that.

Maybe he SHOULD but then the law needs to be modified, not just ignored. As it is they have to either disallow smoking or provide a partitioned area in which smoking is permitted. So the desperate can sit through a set of live music then dive into the smoker's enclosure with like minded folks.

In Spain they have a system whereby a publican or restaurant owner who wants have unrestricted smoking for his patrons may do so, but he has to pay for a license to do so.

That would be a better deal. At present we in SA are entitled to presume that any public venue is non-smoking. So you can book, turn up and find the place allows smoking with no restrictions and when you complain then they shrug you off and you can put up with it or leave. Not good.

At the very least let them advertise "this is a smoking venue" (and not in small print embedded in the bar code in the e-ticket). Then everybody is making an informed choice. Doing it surreptitiously is not a good solution - especially if you're not going to offer any compensation to patrons who arrived under the perfectly reasonable assumption that they would not be exposed to tobacco smoke. That's also a contravention of people's rights.

Chabenda

singemonkey wrote Live music venues tend to be pretty lax about smoking in my experience. Not sure how that all works. Can't last for long though. Eventually we'll have to say goodby to yellowed binding on old Les Pauls ?

- and burnt black patches on Strat headstocks! ?

coynegfsa

Found this online...

evolucian

Explorerlover wrote Had the same issue in GC at the Metallica show this past weekend.

I smoke and I understand the craving but man, when you have that amount of people standing so close together, have some courtesy for the non smokers...especially when you start lighting your electric salad....

You have got to be kidding me. Courtesy is a two way street... they (those plebs who don't smoke) should understand I need to feed my lungs and thankfully did just that. I mean, I even asked if it was ok and they all nodded... a la Ace Ventura style. Not that I really asked... didn't feel I had to.

Regarding clubs where one cannot smoke... well, we smokers can definitely smell a place without ashtrays and we abide by its rules. With clubs that have ashtrays... the party is mine.

"You know those things give you cancer right?"
"What? No I didn't... let me light another one to see if you're messing with me. By the way, you drove here right?"

Courtesy of Bill Hicks (and edited):
The worst kind of non-smoker is the one when you're smoking and they just walk up to you [mocks a person faking a cough] I always say 'shit, you're lucky you don't smoke. That's a hell of a cough you got there. I smoke all day and don't cough like that. Maybe you were conceived with a weak sperm or somethin'. Maybe your dad was jackin' off and your mom sat on it at the last second.' Did I overreact? I don't think I did. I think that's kind of cruel, I'm smoking and you come up coughing at me, Jesus. Do you go up to crippled people and start dancing too? [starts dancing] Hey Mr. Wheelchair, what's your problem? C'mon iron-side, race ya. Frikkin sadists. I mean the nerve!
*************************

When a club has no air and it affects the smokers too... I'd say that club is flawed with regards to ventilation. Even I leave my door open in my shack in krugersdorp during winter. I do not blow my smoke into a non smokers face... unless they just coughed at me. Gives them something to cough about - philanthropist that I am. I'll say it again... courtesy is a two way street

BassBoy

Anyone seen my lighter?