Smoked Out

Other places aren't so lucky. Although Rudyard's has an outdoor patio downstairs, Rodgers says she doesn't have enough money to put one upstairs, or something even more elaborate. "For about five years, I've wanted to put a three-hole putt-putt golf course on the roof," she says. "Not because of the smoking ban, but if I get one, people can smoke while they putt."

Over at Proletariat, owner Denise Ramos faces an uncertain future for reasons entirely unrelated to the smoking ban. "Back when we heard about the smoking ban, we have an upstairs area we were thinking about building out," she says. "But the Light Rail might come through Richmond, so we're uncertain about building — if it does, Proletariat will have to be demolished."

Ramos expects to know her bar's fate by next June; until then, although she admits her clientele are heavy smokers, she trusts them not to abandon her. "We have a really, really loyal customer base, and they're pretty much going to have to deal with this wherever they go," she says. "But people in the Montrose support all the bars — it's part of their lifestyle."

The ban also figures to cost clubs in other­ ways besides renovations. Walter's owner Pam Robinson anticipates losing several man-hours a week to employees on cigarette breaks. "That's what's going to hurt the most: my staff leaving from behind the bar to go smoke," she says. "My cute little girls behind the bar will leave with their cigarettes and their cell phones, and I won't see them for half an hour."

Furthermore, ducking outside for a smoke is one thing if you're just hanging out at a bar, and another matter entirely if you've just paid a hefty cover charge to see a band and have to decide between submitting to the urge and missing a song or two. "It pisses me off no end," says Meridian owner Bob Fuldauer, who thinks the reason most often cited by the ordinance's supporters — protecting the health of often-uninsured service-industry workers — is hogwash.

"I've been in the bar business since 1986, and I recently went in for a checkup," he says. "I'm 50, and my doctor told me I have the heart and lungs of an 18-year-old. I've consumed more second-hand smoke than anyone I know. I think it's a bunch of crap, to tell you the truth."

Fuldauer, a lifelong nonsmoker, figures that, since the complaints dried up when he started doing nonsmoking shows — whichever of Meridian's two rooms the bands aren't playing in is the smoking area, "except for rockabilly shows" — it must come down to politics. "I don't remember voting on this," he says. "I don't remember there ever being an option there. They could have come up with a compromise that wasn't this drastic."

In Austin, they did vote on it. After one of the most rancorous and vitriolic campaigns from both sides in the capital city's recent history, in May 2005 voters approved an initiative banning smoking in bars and nightclubs by a thin 52-48 percent margin. And how did that work out?

"Business was just terrible for the first year," says Randall Stockton, owner of punk-rock club Beerland in the downtown Red River district. Beerland was forced to raise its cover charge and drink prices and cut out its happy hours, and eventually coaxed the city into allowing them to fence off some of the sidewalk out front to make a patio. If they hadn't done that, Stockton figures, Beerland would be out of business.

"It keeps customers on the premises with a beer in hand," he says. "It was expensive and will probably pay for itself over time, [and] has the added value of giving us the appearance of a place where something's happening."

So there's that to look forward to. But if all else fails, Houston's hard-core nicotine fiends may have a recourse no one has previously thought of: starting a band. By the city's own language, the ordinance only applies to "enclosed public areas," and in Pam Robinson's opinion, Walter's public area ends at the edge of the stage.

"Mike from Flametrick Subs told me a lot of artists [in Austin] smoke, and they don't have the liberty of going outside," she says. "The stage and band room [backstage] are private areas, not open to the public. If someone gets onstage from the crowd, we throw them off."

Either way, Robinson adds, "If it means less cigarette butts in my urinals, I'll be happy."

chris.gray@houstonpress.com