Ventilation in your Lounge or B&M

[lenguamor]

I guess I didn't realize how good I had it in Seattle; apparently there are regulations there which dictate a certain level of ventilation/extraction by square footage.

At Smokey Joe's in Fife, our regular Mossback hangout, I never felt "smoked out" despite there being 30 or more cigars lit in the room at peak (Taco Tuesday!).

Yet now that I'm back in Miami, I haven't been to one place where I haven't felt that I was smoking every cigar in the room...and in some cases, that's been over 15 cigars. It wears on you after a couple hours, you know?

Now, clearly, I'm a smoker. But with the lack of ventilation in local places it gets to the point where I can't even taste my own cigar anymore.

What's up with that? Are the regs just that lax down here, or are shop/lounge owners simply ignoring the law? How is it in your local joints?

[DaBear]

Its different by state I believe, and also changes by the lease agreement as well. If it becomes bothersome for you just mention it to the owner, sometimes if the traffic in the store isn't high enough they don't bother with the extra ventilation system just because its so loud.

On another note:
I remember hearing a a story about a shop in a VA mall where the mall tried to jack up rent for the store by twice as much because they were allowed to smoke inside and the mall had just put a kids place right out front of the store. The owner agreed on one condition, that the mall hired someone to check the pollutant concentrations of the store and other stores in the mall and if the cigar store had the highest concentration they would gladly either stop allowing smoking in the store or pay the increase in rent. Needless to say they weren't even close, and were actually on the lower end of most of the stores because of the ventilation system.

[Silound]

Louisiana doesn't really have much in the way of regs on that, just that the building must be vented to outside air.

I suspect many B&Ms simply are trying to save money where possible. Filtration systems are NOT cheap, and the monthly upkeep can run into the thousands of dollars for carbon filters and closed filter systems. Just an electrostatic filter service costs about 400 a month here.

It really depends on the size of the shop, how much business it does, and if the business owns the building or rents it. A building owned by a modest to larger shop that does $1M+ a year in sales could probably afford a closed return-air filtration system better than a shop that rents a building and does < $500k sales a year.

[CigarNut]

We have similar regulations in Portland. The Mark at the Shilo Inn as two big "Smoke Eaters", but they do not always do the job. When it gets busy they need to open a couple of windows to get some additional ventilation.

[Emjaysmash]

Not sure if there are requirements in WI. I know one B&M had an event I went to with 40-50 people, and after a couple hours I had to step outside to get some fresh air. There's another B&M I sometimes go to that has it on so high (even with only 2-3 people) that your cigar burns unevenly unless you rotate every couple puffs or so.

[Zeuceone]

Same problem at my local lounge. When it gets bad I go smoke outside. They are working on getting a better vent system.

[Mattso3000]

Vent system is pretty damn good where I smoke. The only time I can remember even noticing extra smoke was at the Sam Leccia Cain F Nub event and there were at least 50 people in a small shop. Almost standing room only and everyone smoking. They frequently turn the Smokeaters up or down depending on the crowd to make sure there is enough ventilation.

[JohnRogers]

Anybody have details on ventilation systems they are really impressed with?