Did every public place in America smell like cigarettes in the 60s?

Not just America. And not just in the 60s.

People smoked at works, planes, trains, busses.

Ex-smokers retch, but people really often smelled like ashtrays.

 

Yeah, pretty much.

And the smokers were entitled, with no respect for anyone else's space.

 

Yeah there must have been ashes all over

 

Right on up through the early 90's

 

Yep. And some places still smell FROM the 60's
And that film of grime was everywhere.

One of the greatest changes in my lifetime.

 

I guess it depends what part of the country you’re from as to when it stopped

But I remember going to restaurants when I was a kid and there was a cigarette machine in the lobby and smoking in the bar and a smoker section divided from the nonsmokers with a 4 foot partition

This would have been....

Oh early to late 90’s

Makes me feel old

 

Yes.
People smoked in restaurants, bars, grocery stores, airplanes, at work and at home.
My Dad smoked till I was about 12.
Most of his friends smoked.
It was everywhere.
It stunk, but you got used to it, and accepted it.

 

Yup. The world was our ashtray. Great times for smokers. People smoked in college classrooms, in offices, and it was normal to just light up in someone's house. I even used to smoke with my kids in the car (windows cracked of course) - it may sound insane now but it was normal. I remember it was weird when people started going outside to smoke in the late '80s.

 

Yes.

Which is how my blackface amps developed such wonderful bar tans.

But it's also why nearly 25 years (and scraping the most disgusting goo out of the pickup cavity) were necessary before my Strat stopped smelling like an ash tray.

 

There’s a restaurant we go to that hasn’t had smoking in it for probably 20 years now but where the smoking section used to be they still have the smoke eater on the ceiling and all the ceiling tiles are completely brown except maybe 2 or 3 they’ve changed since that time

So yeah it will permeate anything

The o.ps post reminds me of my dad telling me stories of his Dr. he had as a kid that would chain smoke in the examination room

I get a kick out of all the old ads that have doctors endorsing their brand of choice

 

I was born in 1967. I remember taking a trip to Europe in 1987. On the plane from London to Rome, the smoking section was the right side of the plane (left side was non-smoking). The college I went to had just banned (in 1985) professors smoking while they taught, but people smoked in dorms and pretty much everywhere else.

Now I teach at a university. My building was built in 1970 and smoking was banned indoors in the late 1980s. The elevator was sooo grimy. One summer day a couple years back I got bored and got a step stool, cleaner, and paper towels and went to work cleaning it up (mainly just the ceiling). The smell of stale smoke was so bad I got nauseated.

 

NYC banned cigarette/cigar smoking in bars a long time ago, and pretty much everywhere else since then.

Now the predominant smell everywhere, at every hour, is a strange skunk-like odor.

 

I grew up around smokers, my parents and grandparents smoked, while driving in the car with me from birth, in the house and everywhere. I smoke and have done since I was 15yo. I smoke everywhere I go although I cant smoke in bars and food places, malls etc since about 12 years ago. Prior to that I smoked in bars, restaurants, mc donalds, malls etc. I can remember my feet sticking to the carpet in bars and live music venues through the 80's and 90's. I have hardwood floors but need to paint my house interior every 5 years due to smoking. Smoking was encouraged in my formative years. The anti smoking thing seems like a more recent hipster movement to me. Yes I know it kills and is really bad your you. I recently discussed this with my 94 year old great aunt who had quit smoking at 90yo. She missed it terribly but was still in good health.

For the majority a lifetime of smoking might take something like 5 to 10 years off the end of your life. I enjoy smoking and am addicted to it. I figure a lifetime of enjoyment and hopefully reaching 90yo instead of 100 might be not such a bad trade. If i'm wrong then so be it.

 

Yep, everywhere stunk. When I was growing up in the 60's, people smoked pretty much everywhere they wanted to, except where there were exceptions.

Sounds mad now!

I have to say that it was really weird going to gigs after the smoking ban kicked in everywhere. That smokey haze was an integral part of the experience...

I'd rather have smelled the smoke than the toilets in some bars, though...

 

True this!

I was born in '61. I remember my dad smoking in grocery stores and doctors' offices, movie theaters so smoke-filled the screen was hazed if you were in the back rows and your eyes would burn trying to see the screen, etc., etc.

Hospitals were among the very few places with any no-smoking areas/designated smoking areas.

Both my parents smoked--throughout the house, in the car, etc. Most people who smoked were like this. Unless they were being considerate to someone who had spoken up, they smoked wherever and whenever they wanted to. It was indeed the way things were. I remember our family doctor smoking while checking my chicken pox.

I noticed how much my clothes, I, my family, our dog, and our house and car stunk only after I'd been at friends' houses whose parents didn't smoke, or away on camping trips, etc. Your nostrils had to clear and your clothes be washed or rained on enough that your family's smokestink was out of them before you could gauge how much of your daily life was saturated with cigarette reek. My dad would yearly repaint his home office and the bathroom to cover the yellow-brown cigarette stains on the ceiling. Many parents had cigarettes out in little vases or in cases on coffee tables for guests, or to seem sophisticated, or just to spare themselves having to hunt down a fresh pack.

It was thus easy to steal grown-ups' cigarettes and sell them to teenagers so we could buy candy and, later, beer. (Alcohol's easy availability in those days is another, and related, story!) Or you could just go to your nearest cigarette machine, ignore the stickers telling you that you had to be 15 or 16 to buy cigarettes, put in your 65 or 85 cents and buy yourself all the smokes you wanted.

When I started college, in '79, people smoked in the classrooms, the hallways, the offices, the dorms, wherever. I remember hoping that I could b.s. the fact that I hadn't read the assigned book 'cause that prof liked my brand of cigarettes and would "borrow" several from me during each class.

It was nice to look up, at a major league baseball night game, and watch the smoke drifting up to the floodlights. At Tiger Stadium, it looked like the whole ballpark was part of a hard-eyed gumshoe's office in a '40s film noir, sometimes.

It was also incredibly disgusting--so of course I ended up hooked on Lucky Strikes by the time I was 17. Took me two years to quit.

I've craved a disgusting, chocolately-rich Lucky about every 15 minutes since......

 

I smoked from 1975 until 1989, everywhere ( grocery stores, school, shopping, in bed, in the shower!) 2.5 packs a day!

I used to work for years, cleaning Gov't office buildings at night - huge rooms with an ocean of desks- every desk with 2 ashtrays, and me, dumping out ashtrays, while smoking!
That was my life.

Edit: I NEVER knew how badly I stunk from smoking ( clothes/breath) till I quit, and started smelling co-workers that were still smoking- wow! Just THAT was a revelation!

 

We developed a joke about this restaurant in Alamogordo, NM where there were two dining rooms. One of for people who ate their entire meal with a cigarette at their lips, or burning on the salad plate, and the other group who waited until most were done eating before they lit up. This was like 1992. And the best part is, many had something to do with White Sands and probably had elevated radiation levels to start with. Talk about stacking odds against you.

I remember this one dentist on Downman Road, and he had a lit cigarette going while he pulled a wisdom tooth of mine. But, it was like $ 50 total so there is that! :^)

 

Nope, since we were smoking so much ourselves, we didn’t usually notice much unless we were in a crowded bar.