In early high school (15~ years ago), I went with my girlfriend at the time and her family to a local restaurant that still had one of the only smoking sections left in the city. All of her family smoked, and I couldn’t even enjoy my meal because my senses were overloaded by cigarettes. It was horrible and I’m so thankful we removed smoking indoors in the states.
I remember being at a Legion fish fry once years ago and you could still smoke in there after it was banned everywhere else. Fish and smoke do not mix well.
I got to bar age after most cities in my area passed non-smoking bylaws for bars and restaurants, but lived for a bit in one city that didn’t yet have a ban. I smoked at the time. I remember thinking that while it was nice to be able to just have a smoke while chilling on a couch with friends and a drink, the air quality sucked overall and I was glad to see the ban eventually go through there, too.
A while later, I stopped smoking in my car. If I wanted a smoke, I’d park somewhere and do it outside. For places I lived, if it already had people smoking indoors, I’d just do that, but otherwise I’d smoke outside because the clean air was nicer (both while smoking outside and when I returned to the inside).
So even as a smoker, the convenience wasn’t worth it to me, unless the air quality was already bad.
I quit smoking when Marlboros went over $2/pack lol. Airports had these awful rooms where all the smokers would cram in and hotbox. Other countries are still like it used to be here in the US. Japan comes to mind as one such bad example. If you ask for a non-smoking table in a restaurant, they just sit you at any random table and put a little “no smoking” sign on it!
Japan’s changed in the last few years. Chain restaurants there’s a separate air tight smoking room or you can’t smoke indoors at all. Local places might allow it but I feel like I don’t see it much even then. The only places left that have it seem to be bars or izakayas.
I worked at a pub for a while, and had an instance where a group of friends sitting outside moved 2-3 metres away to smoke. I basically had to tell them to either stop smoking or go to the designated smoking area because they were ruining the meal of everybody sitting around
They honestly didn’t take the news well. Made me feel less bad about putting my foot down
When I was little, I asked my parents why they don’t smoke and they just laughed. I didn’t understand why. Because 100% of the other adults I knew were smokers.
I work in an office that was built in 1980. There are built-in ashtray slots in the restrooms. They’ve all been glued shut now, but it’s very obvious what they are.
There’s a main atrium in the building surrounded by the wings of space for cubicles. I can only imagine the smoke cloud that must have hung in the air back in the day!
I was only a kid when we still had smoking vs non smoking sections, but I remember how odd I thought it was back then.
The pungent smell of smoke permeated the air throughout the entire restaurant. Usually there was not even a door separating smoking from non smoking. Idk what they were hoping to accomplish.
I remember being in the hospital emergency room with parents during the mid 70’s and the doctor lit one up right there. My parents later talked about how inappropriate it was. That was the first time I heard talk of it being bad. Everyone smoked everywhere all the time
I know an older nurse whose job it was to follow a pediatrician around the children’s hospital and try and catch his ashes in an ashtray while he rounded on his patients.
I think smoking rooms in hotels are still a thing, but they’re certainly less common than they were. My mother and I got stuck in a smoking room despite booking a non-smoking room well in advance and it was awful. Stayed just one night and our clothes smelled like cigarette smoke for the rest of the trip.
I don’t really care if people smoke, but gosh, ya’ll need ventilation.
casinos dont allow smoking anymore (at least the ones ive been) and the smoking room they had was so small and pathetic and had no ventilation at all it was terrible
not that i went there to smoke or gamble i just wanted to check it out. it was horrible