Dec 01, 2006  |  By: KATHERINE VOLIN  | COMMENTS     

With just one month to go until the implementation of D.C.’s smoking ban, local gay nightlife promoters are ordering cigarette disposal containers, rearranging entrances and otherwise taking steps to prepare for the changes that Jan. 1 will bring.

“We’re ordering outdoor receptacles so they can douse their cigarettes before they get to the bar,” said Bill Cappello, owner of gay leather bar D.C. Eagle, 639 New York Ave., NW.

Cappello and co-owner Ted Clements started preparing for the ban years before it became D.C. law when they headed to New York in 2003, shortly after that city enacted its smoking ban.

“We were pleasantly surprised to see it didn’t make much of a difference because if all of the bars are on the same footing, it’s not like they can go to the bar down the street to smoke,” Cappello said.

Their experiences in New York led them to believe that the ban could eliminate the link between drinking, socializing and smoking.

“We’re both smokers, and it didn’t bother us,” Cappello said. “When everyone else in the bar isn’t smoking, you didn’t get the inclination.”

Cappello said after an initial adjustment period, he doesn’t think his business will suffer adverse effects from the ban. But, he added, the smoking ban might have an impact on where the Eagle lands in its quest to find a new location.

“If we ever move, we’re going to look for a place with an outdoor area, so people who want to smoke, can,” Cappello said.

Other nightlife operators in the area are also greeting the impending ban with a shrug of inevitability and assurances of adjustment.

“I’m not worried about it at all,” said Bridget Hieronymus, who organizes A Different Kind of Ladies Night, a lesbian event at local straight bars.

Studies have indicated that gay men and lesbians have a disproportionately high rate of smoking, a tendency that Hieronymus has observed at A Different Kind of Ladies Night.

“It just seems like every lesbian that comes to these events smokes,” said Hieronymus, who recently quit smoking. “It’s really rare for me to look around and see someone not smoking. I can’t wait for that smoking ban.”

‘Significant’ implications
for gay businesses

The higher rate of smoking among gays and lesbians is part of what makes former local gay nightlife promoter Mark Lee certain it will adversely impact gay nightlife.

“The implications for gay bars and clubs is significant because the LGBT community … smokes at nearly twice the rate of the general population,” said Lee, who is a longtime outspoken opponent of the ban. “The implications for an effect on businesses is significant and likely to be substantial.”

Hieronymus, however, said that people were more interested in the benefits of going out than in not being able to smoke.

“[I’m not worried] unless people are going to start staying home and smoking cigarettes in their neighborhood, which they’re not going to do,” she said. “People want to still go out and socialize and meet people.”

Vicki Harris, who operated Soft ‘N Wet Afternoons until Club Wet in Southeast, D.C., closed, and who now runs a weekly party, Sensual Saturdays, at Club 501 in Northeast, says that smokers will adjust their behavior.

“I don’t think people are going to be frustrated. It’s just the way it’s going to be,” Harris said. “Either you’re going to smoke outside while you’re out, or you’re not.”

Harris only allows smoking on the first floor of the club during her events, and has already arranged for a roped-off area outside the club for smokers, so they don’t have to be searched again when they re-enter the club.

“People come for more than just a cigarette,” Harris said. “They come for the party, the atmosphere, the people, the food, the camaraderie. They could smoke anywhere, anytime. This is just one part of their life, not all that they are.”

Mike Watson thought the same thing when he and Tom McGuire opened their bar, BeBar, 1318 9th St., NW, this fall.

“We would have opened smoke-free regardless [of the ban],” Watson said. “We’ve had positive experience at bars in L.A. and New York and our feedback from customers not only in those cities but in others as well indicated to us that a smoke-free bar is in fact desirable even by those who smoke.”

Studies from New York’s Department of Health have not revealed a negative impact from the smoking ban on businesses there. The number of liquor licenses issued in New York City increased from 1,361 in 2002 to 1,416 in 2003, the year the ban began, according to the ...