When Bruce Finkelman opened the Empty Bottle in 1993, he smoked cigarettes, like many of his customers. It was part of his vision for the Chicago rock club: “The small, dark, smoky jazz room or rock ‘n’ roll club. Dingy. That really romantic view of the door opening up and smoke billowing out.” But like every other venue in Chicago and just about everywhere else, Empty Bottle has been smoke-free for decades — and Finkelman, now a non-smoking marathon runner, can’t imagine it any other way. “Even if I smell smoke,” the club’s owner says today, “I’m like, ‘Ugh.'”

The first U.S. indoor smoking ban went into effect almost exactly 35 years ago, in San Luis Obispo, Calif. Since then, just about every municipality followed, from New York City in 2003 to Chicago in 2006 to the entire state of Nor

See Full Page