Butts are back

By Alexia Elejalde-Ruiz
RedEye
June 23, 2006

Five months after Big Chicks voluntarily went smoke-free, the Uptown bar has lost so much business that it's letting customers light up again.

Big Chicks owner Michelle Fire said business fell as much as 40 percent to 50 percent during some shifts after she banned smoking at the bar Jan. 16-the day a city ordinance went into effect prohibiting smoking in public places and restaurants, but not bars.

Taverns and restaurant bars that are walled off from dining areas were given until July 2008 to ban smoking, but a handful of bars decided to quit cold turkey right away. For Big Chicks, a gay bar with a large smoking clientele, it turned out to be a bad business move.

"Weekends were good, certain shifts were good, but it wasn't enough to pay the bills," said Fire, who opened the bar 20 years ago. "I couldn't make ends meet unless I was working four shifts myself."

Opponents of the smoking ordinance had warned that a ban would hurt the bottom line of establishments that served alcohol and welcomed the 2008 compromise for bars so they could adjust to the ban.

But Fire said the compromise left businesses in an "untenable situation," as bars that opted to clear the air for the sake of health would lose customers to those that didn't. On Sunday, she brought smoking back to half of Big Chicks, but kept the other half smoke-free.

"We took 20 years of loyal customers and handed them to the competition," said bartender Dave Douglass, who said several familiar faces disappeared with the ban.

"It was very nice to work in a smoke-free environment, but I want everybody to be happy," Douglass said. "This seems to be the best compromise."

Perched on a stool at the Big Chicks bar around midnight Wednesday, Julie Walsh relished her cigarette. A longtime customer, she said she was "shocked" when the bar banned smoking in January.

"In the winter I stopped coming because I hate going outside and looking like a junkie as I tried to light my cigarette," said Walsh, 48, of Portage Park. "I'm elated that they brought it back."

Seated next to Walsh was her friend Dennis Aguilera, a non-smoker unfazed by the smoke curling by him. He said he didn't mind Big Chicks' decision to ban smoking-or bring it back.

Going smoke-free seems to have worked for other bars.

Charleston, which voluntarily went smoke-free in October, "will never go back to being a smoking bar," said Lisa Schrag, a bartender at the Bucktown tavern.

"I love it, and I even know smokers who enjoy it," she said, noting her clothes don't reek, and she can breathe easier.

At Keefer's restaurant downtown, co-owner and managing partner Glenn Keefer said business is up 10 percent since Keefer's voluntarily banned smoking at the restaurant bar in January.

"We lost a few smoking customers, but we gained a few non-smoking customers, and a few who smoke continue to come," Keefer said.
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