As regular readers of Smoke Signals know, we visit Las Vegas a couple of times a year, and in addition to (naturally) searching for good sightings, we use these visits as sort of a benchmark on the progress (or anti-progress, if you prefer) of the anti-smoking movement.
And once again, the news wasn’t great.
Those of you who’ve visited Vegas in the past, know that it was one of the nation’s greatest playgrounds for smoking fetish folks – smoking everywhere, and great sightings no matter which way you turn.
But it’s been getting worse year by year, and we sadly have to report that there’s been no reversal.
Most of the “upscale” restaurants (and we do enjoy the explosion of fabulous cuisine in Vegas) now ban smoking entirely (except in their lounge/bar area). The number of smoking rooms in most of the casino hotels is getting smaller and smaller.
And sightings are harder and harder to find.
Smoking is still (thankfully) allowed in all the major casinos and clubs. But, it seems, the days of seeing hundreds of well-dressed young women stylishly chain-smoking while sitting at the gambling tables and slot machines in every casino, have passed. In visiting a number of casinos, we certainly saw smokers, and had some decent sightings. But there were also times that we walked completely around the gambling areas of major casinos, and didn’t see a single smoking woman worth our time. In fact, our best sightings were actually in a couple of indoor shopping “malls” (at the Venetian and Caesar’s Palace), rather than in the casinos.
A very unwelcome sign of the times
We’ll follow up tomorrow with a report of our best sightings.

As many of you know, Ed Luisser, the dean of smoking video and the man behind CoherentLight Photography, has been having some health problems over the last year.
We spent more than an hour with him on the phone this week, and we’re pleased to report that for the first time since he’s been ill, Ed sounds fit, excited, and moving forward. He’s now taking care of the backlog of work that has piled up during his illness – and sounds like he has a lot of great new ideas.
Obviously, we can’t promise anything specific as far as the dates of his site updates, new videos, and so on – but we’ve very happy to say that it certainly sounds like CoLight will soon be back on track and moving ahead!
Incidentally, Ed asked us to pass along that he’s searching for a copy of a movie that qualifies as an oldie but goodie, “In This House of Brede” – if anyone has any leads on where he can find it, please give him a holler.