A no-smoking announcement is shown on a table in the Sand Dollar Lounge, 3355 Spring Mountain Road, Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2020. The popular blues bar became smoke free on Jan. 1.
Sunday, Jan. 19, 2020 | 2 a.m.
Imagine stepping into a 40-year-old Las Vegas dive bar. A rough-voiced man is singing the blues in the back corner, while patrons sip whiskey and beer. A handful of customers play pool or video poker.
You might expect to see smoke clouding the air to complete the picture. But at the Sand Dollar Lounge, located in an unassuming strip mall just west of the Strip on Spring Mountain Road, that is no longer the case.
The owners of the Sand Dollar banned smoking at the beginning of January to protect the health of employees, musicians and patrons who frequent the bar. The move is unusual in a city where smoking is permitted in most bars, especially locals-heavy dive bars like the Sand Dollar.
But contrary to the prevailing local wisdom, the business, which first opened under a different iteration in 1976, hasn’t suffered due to the smoking ban, the owners say.
The idea of a smoking ban was floated four years ago, when co-owners Nathan Grates, Anthony Jamison and Benito Martinez took over the Sand Dollar. Over the years, Jamison, a nonsmoker, developed a cough from the work environment. The Sand Dollar installed air purifiers, but they made little difference.
The owners also noticed that employees would sometimes leave the job because of the smoke, or they struggled to quit smoking given its prevalence in their work environment, Grates said.
“One of the things they (would) mention is, ‘I love working here, I love the people, I love our clients, but it’s just that I don’t want to spend another five years here and wonder what it’s doing to my body,’” he said.
Evidence suggests they were onto something. According to the Centers for Disease Control and the Southern Nevada Health District, there is no safe level of exposure to secondhand smoke.
When the Sand Dollar owners experimented with a temporary smoking ban for a New Year’s Eve pop-up event, customer feedback was overwhelmingly positive.
“People just loved it. They were really ecstatic,” Grates said.
So far, the no-smoking rule has been a success, with employees and customers — even some who smoke — saying they prefer it this way because they don’t leave the place smelling of smoke, Jamison said. The musical acts that come to the bar every night have also appreciated the change. One of the bar’s most popular artists had previously requested that the owners not allow smoking near the stage, Grates said.
“These guys are singers, and obviously their health is affected. A lot of them smoke, too, but we didn’t get any pushback from the bands,” he said.
Although one customer said they wouldn’t return because of the smoking ban, many more in the last few weeks have said they chose to come to the Sand Dollar because it is smoke-free, the co-owners said. In addition, the business hasn’t noticed a change in gaming revenue, which itself is only a small part of its business model.
“Everyone’s big argument is you have to have smoking if you have gaming, but we do such a small amount of gaming that it doesn’t really affect any of that,” Jamison said.
The point of the ban is not to shame smokers (who are welcome to smoke outside the property), to take a stance against smoking or to start a trend. The idea is to make the Sand Dollar Lounge a place where everyone feels welcome, regardless of health problems or personal preferences, Grates said.
“At the end of the day, we want everybody to enjoy (the bar), and smoking, I think, is more a part of the past than anything, even in Vegas,” he said.
