HAPPY, DULUTH?

By: Paul Jugasek
January 18, 2005

I hope everyone enjoyed MOMA 2005 in Duluth . . .

........because I have a feeling that it will be the last time that it comes here.

Due to the "smoking ban" that we have here in Duluth, it prevented players from smoking starting on Friday night (Jan. 14th) at about 10 pm in Pioneer Hall. In a contract that allowed dart players to smoke that was written up in 2000, it was revoked from the players due to protestors, local media, and complaints to the mayor about the smoke in the skywalk.

Personally, I find it quite sad that some sort of terms couldn't have been met to comply to both sides. It was either "quit now" or "get the hell out"! I'm sorry but pretty much being a non-smoker, I'll have to say that smoking is part of darts. Everyone has to play in a bar where smoking goes on for league. I find it quite lame that citizens of Duluth don't fully understand that the last time MOMA came to Duluth was in 1995 and now in 2005, which will be the last year that is comes to Duluth I would be willing to bet any money on. Citizens need to find just about anything to b!tch about these days and to blame "the dart players" for this happening is completely ridiculous.

This event brings thousands of people from out of town, and I mean WAY out of town like Madison, WI and even places in Iowa. It brings a heck of a lot of business to local bars, restaurants and such for the whole weekend (starting Thursday and ending Sunday), especially when most college students are still on winter break. But yet, no exceptions can be made for an event where it was known that smoking would be allowed for years, to be changed half way through the event.

I'll tell ya what, if there was something said about six months in advance that there would be no smoking in Pioneer Hall for MOMA, I would be willing to bet that at least 25% of the people would not even show up, if not more people.

Darts is a bar event and that's a fact. In bars, there is smoking that goes on and some people choose whether or not to take part in that or not because of cigarette smoke. To simply take that away from thousands of dart players because Duluth is now a city that is under a "smoking ban", I find that embarassing. As a citizen of the city, I was EMBARASSED for our city to find out that things were reversed on Friday night, in the middle of the dart tournament.

Now after this year, MOMA will try and find places that will keep the "bar" type feel while entertaining their dart players best interests, and unfortunately that won't include Duluth anymore. Because of that, I honestly say that I'm quite embarassed and p!ssed off to be a citizen of a place like this. People choose to smoke, fine. People choose NOT to smoke, fine. I understand why people wouldn't want cigarette smoke in a area where people eat, fine (me included). But to take that away from strictly bars is just plain out ridiculous. People choose whether of not to go into bars because of smoke. If I hated cigarette smoke THAT much, I wouldn't play in any darts league or go to the bar in general.

But hey, that's only coming from a NON-SMOKER........

Thanks a lot you whiners and protestors who got the smoking reversed. Does it give you a better feeling about yourself because in all honesty, you saved absolutely NO lives because of this one incident. But you almost ruined a whole tournament that comes here once every 11 years!! To those people, I give a big "F you" to.

I'd like to apologize for any inconvience this may of caused to thousands of people from out of town who had to be part of this embarassing incident. As a citizen of Duluth, I guess I don't know what else to say to all the people from out of town......hope you come back soon??

Paul Jugasek

January 18th, 2005