Posted by Randall on 8/26/2009, 9:00 pm
24.179.110.134
I just got back from my trip to Cincinnati / Northern Kentucky, and while I had a wonderful time, I was a bit surprised how things turned out.
- There are, indeed, several nice smoking lounges at the Cincinnati / Northern Kentucky Airport. I was able to linger there for quite a bit of time after my flight came in, hoping for good sightings. I met a very mall handful of attractive smokers, but mostly the rooms were nearly empty, or populated by not-so-attractive dudes and older women. The last time I was there, maybe four years ago, the population of smokers was definitely higher and more "mixed", with as many nice-looking folks and well-dressed airline employees as there were rough types.
- I visited seven bars in Northern Kentucky. All of them allowed smoking, but only 3 of them appeared to allow employees to smoke. One in particular was my favorite ... a nice laid-back bar run by friendly people, where of the four barmaids I met, two of them were smokers, one was not, and a third had just quit because she was pregnant.
- I also visited an English pub where I think at least half the women were smokers, though they had to go "round the back" to smoke. That's always struck me as a shame, though the reason may have more to do with management wanting their waitresses to stay alert for customers, not because of any actual anti-smoking motivation. I did catch a look at where they went to smoke, and it was kind of a roofless shed where they store the sidewalk umbrellas, and they had some chairs and a table there. It looked like someone went out of their way to make it a pleasant place for a smoke break.
I did meet one gorgeous, wholesome-looking beauty there who was enthusiastic about her love of smoking ... happy to talk about it once I mentioned how nice it was to be able to smoke inside for a change.
- On my last night, I made it to a place I'd read about and sounded good. What I didn't realize until I got there was that it was just about officially a gay bar ... not my cup of tea, though I was more amused than embarrassed. For one thing, the bartender was a nice-looking young smoker, and the time I was there, the place was pretty empty. Then her relief came, and I kid you not, THIS girl is a dead ringer for Chelsea from Specialized Videos. In fact, I'm half convinced she IS that Chelsea. She said she quit smoking a year ago, due to asthma, but smoked for many years before that. It's been more than a year since Chelsea appeared in Specialized videos, so I theoretically could be her. I mean ... man, she really looked like her, and I waited an awfully long time, half convinced she would smoke, half convinced she wouldn't, until I got up the courage to ask.
All in all, it was really, really nice to smoke indoors in a bar again, though I was kind of dismayed at how few people took advantage of that. If I go there again ... and I will, count on it ... I'll have to get up the energy and nerve to go into one of the college-crowd bars or nightclubs during a busy weekend evening. I'll bet that's where all the sightings are, if I can cut my way through the crowd well enough to see anything!
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