'Sober bar' must sell Booze to allow smokers

Edmonton Journal ^ | Friday, August 15, 2003 | Jason Markusoff

[Ronin]

EDMONTON - A "sober bar" that caters to recovering alcoholics was told Thursday to get a liquor licence and start serving alcohol if it wants to let customers smoke.

A city bylaw inspector's warning creates a painful Catch-22 for the owners of north-side Keep it Simple club. If they stay dry and ban smoking, they say they'll lose 90 per cent of their business.

If they start selling liquor, they'll be tempting many patrons to return to addiction.

"The city is forcing us to promote alcohol as the only way we can keep smoking," co-owner Tom Charbonneau said. "Other restaurants and bars have that option, but we don't."

Charbonneau and Lawrence Lathe opened Keep It Simple two years ago to give recovering alcoholics, gambling or drug addicts a bar-like atmosphere without the booze they have to shun. They also hold meetings for Alcoholics Anonymous, Cocaine Anonymous and other 12-step programs in a back room.

Most former addicts smoke; it gives them at least one vice, Charbonneau said.

A bylaw inspector visited the club Thursday, for the first time since the July 1 start of Edmonton's anti-smoking bylaw, which only allows smoking in bars with a minors-prohibited liquor licence.

She let Charbonneau and fellow co-owner Lawrence Lathe off with a warning, but they'd need to get a licence to continue to allow smoking.

However, the Alberta Gaming and Liquor Commission refused to issue them a licence Thursday, because they weren't planning to actually sell liquor.

"They weren't looking for a liquor licence, they were looking for a smoking licence," said Alberta Gaming spokeswoman Marilyn Carlyle-Helms.

Charbonneau said he plans to ask the city if there is a way to get around the bylaw, without having to bring in alcohol.

"If they say I have to serve a 12-pack, I will buy a 12-pack of beer, sell it for $5 a can, call all the media, stand in front of our sober club and pour it all out on the ground, just to show them how ridiculous it is," Charbonneau said.

A city official said the rules are clear on the bylaw, and the owners knew about the restrictions well in advance.

"This is a decision that has affected a number of other establishments in the city," said Mark Garrett, manager of the city's development compliance branch.

Charbonneau had erroneously thought the nightclub would be exempt because it was a members-only facility. His adjacent Keep It Simple coffee shop went non-smoking on July 1 and has suffered a 30-per-cent drop in business, he said.

The bar has 300 members and Charbonneau said it serves juice, pop and food to 200 people a night.

Bar regular Les Labine sat at a table Thursday, smoking with a friend visiting from Ontario. He's avoided drinking for four months, and would come back less often if the club served alcohol.

"It's part of the recovery process to avoid a bar," he said.

And a smoking ban would also turn Labine away. He's not sure where he'd go, he said.

Charbonneau fears many avid smokers would start visiting the very liquor bars where their addictions began. Keep It Simple has been their refuge.

"This has been a mainstay in the recovery community."

jmarkusoff@thejournal.canwest.com

© Copyright 2003 Edmonton Journal

[steveo]

simple... charge $500 a drink.

[Centurion2000]

Easy solution. Sell Ipecac beer.

[Freebird Forever]

Charbonneau and Lawrence Lathe opened Keep It Simple two years ago to give recovering alcoholics, gambling or drug addicts a bar-like atmosphere without the booze they have to shun. They also hold meetings for Alcoholics Anonymous, Cocaine Anonymous and other 12-step programs in a back room.

Five dollars says that this 12 step group isn’t welcome.

Nicotine Anonymous

[Ronin]

They meet at Starbucks.

[Ronin]

They meet at Starbucks.

[Madame Dufarge]

Bump.

[SheLion]

ack!

[Gabz]

This is what the anti-smokers want - make smokers as uncomfortable as possible.

How disgusting.

[Gabz]

Utterly ridiculous.

[Conspiracy Guy]

A city official said the rules are clear on the bylaw, and the owners knew about the restrictions well in advance. I seem to remember that the leaders of the southern states felt slavery was OK. But even they didn't mandate that everyone farming had to own slaves. This is stoopid government runamuck.

[NeonKnight]

I'm trying to quit smoking (2 weeks after 30 years of smoking) I am beginning to think the key is NOT to change your lifestyle at all. Do all the same things you did while you were smoking. After you have done all of these things several times without smoking, you begin to realize you can, and it gets easier.

[Freebird Forever]

After you have done all of these things several times without smoking, you begin to realize you can, and it gets easier.

Good luck with your endeavor.

After a person overcomes that habit, most other challenges in life become easy by comparison.

[Conspiracy Guy]

I like your choice of the word Habit rather than Addiction. I am a smoker because I like it not because I'm addicted. I stoped for 2 years once and started back. I kept doing all the things I did when I smoked. I know too many people who just decided one day "I quit" and did for it to be an addiction. They key to quitting is to want to.

[Just another Joe]

Coming to a town near you! SOON!

What a crock. And at a private club no less.

[UpToHere]

Seems like the solution is easy. Make alcohol for sale so they can get their liquor license, but they can set their own selling rate at $25,000 per nanoliter.

Reminds me of Mike Snyder's joke on the opry sunday night. This old boy goes in a bar and tells the bar tender to give him 5 shots of the best scotch he has.

The bar tender turns and points to a bottle on the far wall and says, " That's it over there. It's 35 dollars per shot, you sure you want that?"

The old boy says, "I don't care, just pour me 5 shots."

"Ok," says the bar tender; and sets up 5 shot glasses and fills them from the bottle.

The old boy throws down those shots in record time and wipes his mouth.

Bar tender was amazed and said, "I've don't see how anybody could drink 5 shots that fast"

The old boy said, "you could if you've got what I've got."

"What have you got?", ask the bar tender.

"Fifty cents" replied the old boy

[Hatteras]

AA is for quitters! What good is sitting in a bar if you can't drink?!

[Hatteras]

What'll they think of next? A bar without big-screen TVs so housewives can have a "bar atmosphere" without football on to interupt their yapping?!

I say to hell with a bar that doesn't serve alcohol.

"Oh, I want to go to a bar, but I don't want to drink or watch any football..."

What the hell is that?!!

[Mears]

Maybe they consider that they aren't sitting at a bar,they are sitting at a counter,like in a coffee shop.What's the difference?

This is probably the most ridiculous anti-smoking rule I have ever seen.For people suffering through the struggle to stay off booze it is a place to socialize without pressure to drink.

I think the posters that said to get the license and just charge a ridiculously high amount is the answer.

[Hatteras]

If they feel the need to get together and not drink than they can go sit in a circle in the middle of an empty high school cafeteria on Wednesday nights. They shouldn't be taking up valuable space in a bar where honest people can get a stiff drink.

A bar is a bar. A coffee shop is a coffee shop. What they want is to go to a coffee shop but are too embarassed to call it that so they want to call it a "Bar".

[Hot Tabasco]

What would be the harm in allowing people to smoke without drinking?

they'd need to get a licence to continue to allow smoking.

I think that sentence pretty much answers your question......revenues, revenues and more revenues to support the state. The "state" has long since forgotten about the people. Canada is now a dehydrated old sow with all its teats intact and attached to them all are obsolete, proven government failures.

The western provinces need to secede from Vancouver and the rest of the socialist republic of kanada.........