I can't believe that some people would attribute Irish talent to smoking and alcohol. Makes no sense. Let the pubs change and maybe Irish music can be expanded to include people who value their health as well.

There is this pervasive myth that unless music contains smoking and drinking it somehow loses it's grittiness or folk-edge. It's part of the folk-pretentiousness that doesn't reflect the values of many traditional singers and pickers.

Glad the ban is started and maybe those who are insensitive to other people's lungs will get the message that it's not about "their rights" but the rights of others to be around them without having their air polluted by bad boys and girls.

I'm sick of going to music parties and events where it's somehow required to have drunks and wheezing tobacco smokers to give a phony "authenticity" to the precedings.

Frank Hamilton