Golden era restaurants & cuisine of the era

[Fading Fast]

I remember going to the movie theater as a kid to watch Kung fu sword fighting movies and the guy sitting in front of me would be smoking cigarettes, it was very strong, they didnt have a smoking / non smoking section at this old movie theater in SF, chinatown.

One of the craziest things was the no smoking section (especially in small restaurants and, most stupidly, on airplanes) as the smoke didn't know it was suppose to respect some imaginary boundary.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Smoking was never allowed in our theatre -- I don't know if it was a local ordinance or simply because the people who ran it didn't like the stench lingering on the seats and the curtain and cleaning up the filth left behind, but 1940s-era photos of the auditorium reveal very prominent NO SMOKING signs. So even in the Era there were holdouts against nicotine.

Although it might have seemed that way, and despite the best efforts of the Boys and their corporate-media lapdogs to peddle the habit, there was never a time when more than half of all Americans smoked. Smoking peaked in the US in the early sixties, when it was in the upper-forties percent of the total adult population. The gender divide was very prominent -- while, from memory, over 70 percent of men smoked during the peak years, due largely to Big Tobacco colluding with the military to promote tobacco use, the percentage of women who smoked was much lower.

 

[tonyb]

I had been led to believe (perhaps inaccurately) that smoking was prohibited in theaters due to the fire hazard. I don't recall people smoking in movie houses, although I have seen period films showing just that.

I clearly recall my brother being read the riot act by a person at a flour mill where he briefly worked during his late teenage years. He had lit a cigarette, which he hadn't been told was forbidden but which was made clear to him in no uncertain terms. Turns out that flour dust is explosive.

 

[Fading Fast]

Smoking was never allowed in our theatre -- I don't know if it was a local ordinance or simply because the people who ran it didn't like the stench lingering on the seats and the curtain and cleaning up the filth left behind, but 1940s-era photos of the auditorium reveal very prominent NO SMOKING signs. So even in the Era there were holdouts against nicotine.

Although it might have seemed that way, and despite the best efforts of the Boys and their corporate-media lapdogs to peddle the habit, there was never a time when more than half of all Americans smoked. Smoking peaked in the US in the early sixties, when it was in the upper-forties percent of the total adult population. The gender divide was very prominent -- while, from memory, over 70 percent of men smoked during the peak years, due largely to Big Tobacco colluding with the military to promote tobacco use, the percentage of women who smoked was much lower.

The problem was, though, that it only took a small percentage smoking a restaurant, theatre or airplane - for example - to ruin it for the half (or more) that didn't smoke. And I just thought of this one: remember when someone would smoke in a car on a hot, humid rainy day (and this was when most cars - certainly ours - didn't have air conditioning) - my God, that was beyond disgusting. It was like breathing in from a bag of exhaled smoke.

And, like you, I do remember (from the late '60s / early '70s) a few no-smoking places and thinking how nice that was - but they were not the rule.

I understand why some older people still smoke - and everyone is free to do what they want as long as they don't smoke in non-smoking areas - but it absolutely amazes me at how many young people I see smoking today. And while the boys from marketing might have been the big cause of it back in the day, the majority of ads about smoking I see now are all the scare-the-bejesus-out-of-you ads about the horrors of smoking. I live near a city college and there are a lot - and I mean a lot - of college kids who smoke.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I think a lot of the kids who do it are doing it for just the reason you name -- "I can do anything I want, you're not the boss of me, nyahh!" Of course, it starts out with the Bold Rebel Individualist pose, but addiction sets in fast, and that's why most of them keep it up -- they're hooked like the poor dumb fish they are.

My brother smokes those "Natural Indian Spirit Cigarettes" or whatever the hell they're called -- a marketing scam if there ever was one. He thinks because they're "natural" they're better for him. Like there's anything natural about sucking on a wad of cut-up burning leaves.

 

[tonyb]

Young people are bulletproof, remember?

When I was in high school the unspoken but de facto rule was that we could smoke in the back parking lot, where we couldn't be seen by the general public, and not in the front lot, which faced an arterial. The teachers' lounge smelled strongly of cigarette smoke, as did the gym teacher's office in the boys' locker room.

I started smoking at age 12. I was thoroughly addicted, a committed smoker, by age 15. Untold millions of my contemporaries could tell a similar tale. And we are all paying for it, even those who never touched a cigarette, in health insurance premiums.

 

[green papaya]

back when smoking was allowed in restaurants, people used to smoke and eat at the same time at your table

I always thought it was silly to have a smoking area for high schools, all the burn outs / dope smokers use to head straight for the smokers area

just like an old man that needed a cigarette and these kids were only 14 - 17 years old? and they were already addicted

 

[LizzieMaine]

Young people are bulletproof, remember?

When I was in high school the unspoken but de facto rule was that we could smoke in the back parking lot, where we couldn't be seen by the general public, and not in the front lot, which faced an arterial. The teachers' lounge smelled strongly of cigarette smoke, as did the gym teacher's office in the boys' locker room.

I started smoking at age 12. I was thoroughly addicted, a committed smoker, by age 15. Untold millions of my contemporaries could tell a similar tale. And we are all paying for it, even those who never touched a cigarette, in health insurance premiums.

Yeah, there was an officially sanctioned "student smoking area" when I went to high school, and you saw all of nature's finest flowers out there puffing away during lunch period. Until the day one of these mental wizards stuffed a hot butt into a locker on the way inside and set fire to some poor kid's raincoat. That was the end of the "student smoking area." And pretty near the end of the school.

 

[Stanley Doble]

Our local theater allowed smoking when I was a kid. In the late 60s smoking was restricted to a smoking section at the left rear part of the seating area near the ventilator exhaust. Smoking was not banned entirely until the eighties. At that time this was all at the discretion of the management. Government had not quite taken over ALL decisions.

This was the Capitol in Port Hope, the first movie theater in Canada built specifically to show "talkies".

 

[Stanley Doble]

Our local theater allowed smoking to all patrons when I was a kid. In the late 60s smoking was restricted to a smoking section at the left rear part of the seating area near the ventilator exhaust. Smoking was not banned entirely until the eighties. At that time this was all at the discretion of the management. Government had not quite taken over ALL decisions.

This was the Capitol in Port Hope, the first theater in Canada built specially to show "talkies". Built in 1928.

 

[tonyb]

This discussion brings to mind just how so many seemingly ingrained customs -- things that are so ubiquitous that they seem as natural as breathing -- can change, and do so in fairly short order.

Smoking in restaurants and bars? Hell, we expected that, not so long ago. Even the quite young remember those days. But now, a person smoking in a restaurant would seem as odd as a person walking into the place buck-ass naked.

 

[LizzieMaine]

It was required for theatres to ban smoking in the projection booth or any other area where film was stored or handled, but otherwise it was a matter of local option. Some theatres had "smoking lounges" in an effort to keep the stench under control. I have the 1940s era building maintenance manual for our theatre in my office here, and it's quite militant about the importance of preventing smoking in the building, not just for the fire hazard or the convenience of non-smoking patrons, but mostly to keep cleaning and upholstery-repair costs down.

 

[Bamaboots]

I moved from Alabama to So Florida in 1980 and was surprised to find that smoking was allowed in the first theatre I visited, with no restricted smoking area that I can remember. Smoking had been banned in AL theaters for some time. So FL in 1980, cigarette smoke was not the only smoke lingering in the theatre.

 

[Fading Fast]

I think a lot of the kids who do it are doing it for just the reason you name -- "I can do anything I want, you're not the boss of me, nyahh!" Of course, it starts out with the Bold Rebel Individualist pose, but addiction sets in fast, and that's why most of them keep it up -- they're hooked like the poor dumb fish they are.

My brother smokes those "Natural Indian Spirit Cigarettes" or whatever the hell they're called -- a marketing scam if there ever was one. He thinks because they're "natural" they're better for him. Like there's anything natural about sucking on a wad of cut-up burning leaves.

Yes, a marketing scam, but let's be honest, the overwhelming marketing message today is "don't smoke," so this one can't be laid at the feet of the Boys from Marketing. And at some point, people are responsible - even young people -for making their own choices.

And, yes, in school, the smell from the teacher's lounge was like a hundred ashtrays had been set on fire.

 

[tonyb]

It was required for theatres to ban smoking in the projection booth or any other area where film was stored or handled, but otherwise it was a matter of local option. Some theatres had "smoking lounges" in an effort to keep the stench under control. I have the 1940s era building maintenance manual for our theatre in my office here, and it's quite militant about the importance of preventing smoking in the building, not just for the fire hazard or the convenience of non-smoking patrons, but mostly to keep cleaning and upholstery-repair costs down.

Cigarette burns in upholstery? You saw the everywhere when I was a kid -- restaurants, bars, automobiles, waiting rooms (even at the doctor's office), etc.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Yes, a marketing scam, but let's be honest, the overwhelming marketing message today is "don't smoke," so this one can't be laid at the feet of the Boys from Marketing. And at some point, people are responsible - even young people -for making their own choices.

And, yes, in school, the smell from the teacher's lounge was like a hundred ashtrays had been set on fire.

Let's not leave out the companies that make billions of dollars a year selling an addictive poison that they've specifically engineered to be even more addictive than it ordinarily would be. And the people and institutions that own shares in these companies. Tobacco is the only commercial product made for human consumption that will, if used precisely as intended by the manufacturer, have a good chance of killing you. You have to be an idiot to use it, but you have to be positively *evil* to manufacture and sell it.

As for fabric burns from cigarettes, dry-cleaning and tailor shops used to run a pretty good line in reweaving those holes. Look thru any classified phone book from the Era and you'll see plenty of ads promising "Invisible Reweaving -- While U Wait!"

 

[Fading Fast]

Let's not leave out the companies that make billions of dollars a year selling an addictive poison that they've specifically engineered to be even more addictive than it ordinarily would be. And the people and institutions that own shares in these companies. Tobacco is the only commercial product made for human consumption that will, if used precisely as intended by the manufacturer, have a good chance of killing you. You have to be an idiot to use it, but you have to be positively *evil* to manufacture and sell it.

As for fabric burns from cigarettes, dry-cleaning and tailor shops used to run a pretty good line in reweaving those holes. Look thru any classified phone book from the Era and you'll see plenty of ads promising "Invisible Reweaving -- While U Wait!"

Owing to taxes and the tobacco settlements - the government makes more money on the sale of tobacco than do the tobacco companies, which almost makes you wonder if the government wants people to smoke. I have no respect for tobacco companies, but the government, defacto, is in the tobacco business and makes a pretty penny off of it. And back to the original point, the young people smoking today have plenty of information (paid for by the tobacco companies as part of the settlement) telling them the horrors of smoking. Hence, I am amazed that there are so many young kids smoking today.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Just goes to show you how Big Tobacco's lobbyists can make just about anybody dance to their tune. Follow the money.

The kids I know who smoke today -- there aren't very many in my immediate circle, because I refuse to hire anyone who smells of smoke -- basically *don't care* about the health effects. And you'd be surprised about how firmly the marketing-created image of "cool" and "sophisiticated" still sticks to the habit -- my own niece took up the habit in college because she thought it made her look more like a New Yorker. She could have just bought herself a black turtleneck and a pair of supercilious sunglasses and gotten the same effect.

 

[Fading Fast]

Just goes to show you how Big Tobacco's lobbyists can make just about anybody dance to their tune. Follow the money.

The kids I know who smoke today -- there aren't very many in my immediate circle, because I refuse to hire anyone who smells of smoke -- basically *don't care* about the health effects. And you'd be surprised about how firmly the marketing-created image of "cool" and "sophisiticated" still sticks to the habit -- my own niece took up the habit in college because she thought it made her look more like a New Yorker. She could have just bought herself a black turtleneck and a pair of supercilious sunglasses and gotten the same effect.

Just my guess, but you probably aren't allowed not to hire somebody just because they smell of smoke - labor laws are pretty tough. That said, I fully appreciate the sentiment. And yes to the turtleneck and sunglasses - anything that projects a disaffected look would work.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Smelling of smoke suggests an applicant who doesn't meet my standards for employee cleanliness. If you can't wash that stink off before your interview, into the wastebasket you go.