Watery eyes. Coughing. Smelly hair and clothes. Cigarette burns on the dance floor. Recognize these?

With Carbondale's first ever Smoke-Free Club Night at Carboz that occurred Feb. 30, these characteristics of a smoky bar were the last thing on everyone's mind.

With a grant from the Illinois Department of Public Health, SIUC's Live Free was able to sponsor this smoke-free night. They awarded a grant of $900,000 to partnering consortium consisting of the SIU Public Policy Institute, Student Health Services, Department of Psychology, College of Mass Communication and Media Arts, Jackson County Health Department and CRHSSD.

This night was another step in giving those who smoke an opportunity to quit, and those who don't a chance to breathe easily in a clean atmosphere.

Kelly Hardwick, a recent graduate of SIU in advertising, was a member of Live Free up until her graduation.

"SIU received a grant from IDPH to create a pilot anti-smoking campaign that would start at SIU and hopefully branch out into other universities," Hardwick said.

This is Live Free Project's promotional event, but Hardwick said they are active year-round. Students can find Live Free posters around school encouraging students to quit smoking. They give away free patches, gum and dental cleaning as incentives and encouragement to quit smoking.

Hardwick would like to see all the bars participate in a smoke-free night.

"I think a lot of people like to smoke when drinking, but if all the bars did it, that would be OK because no one would lose any business over it," she said.

If the clean air wasn't enough incentive for people to come out to Carboz on a Wednesday night, the food, prizes and dance contest would have been. Some prizes included trips to the oxygen bar and gift certificates. The grand prize was a trip for two to California. The winners were determined by a drawing.

One exciting part of the night was the dance contest. With prizes for first through third place, both men and women were out on the floor dancing to their original two-minute routine. Too Intense grabbed the $300 first place prize while SIRDT received $200 as a second place winner and Fatal Fusion won $100 as a third place prize. The winners were determined by audience applause.

Jennifer Hodges, a junior in cinema and photography at SIU, attended the Smoke-Free Club Night for a couple of reasons. She and her friends entered the dance contest, but she also enjoys the clean air.

"Usually clubs are really smoky, and it's good to be at a club and dance where I don't have to worry about my eyes watering from all the smoke," Hodges said.

This was Hodges' second time at a smoke-free bar, but the first time was due to the newness of the club. With new carpets, the owner did not want to take the chance of the carpet being burned.

Hodges thought the attendance of people who usually come to Carboz on the weekends would stay the same whether it was smoke free.

"Carboz is a nice place to come out and if it was smoke free, I still think the people would come. They would just bite the bullet and not smoke for two or three hours," Hodges said.

Mike Clark, a senior in mechanical engineering and a smoker, didn't find that the smoke-free environment took away from any fun he was having that night.

"I didn't know it was a non-smoking night, but I'm trying to cut back anyway," Clark said. "It's not been too bad. It actually smells nice in here, like they're saying."

However, Clark had to go outside whenever he wanted to smoke. Near midnight, Clark said he had already gone outside twice to smoke.

"It's like I still keep on reaching into my pocket out of habit," he said.

According to the Live Free website, the tobacco industry is spending millions targeting college-aged adults, knowing that college is considered a time for experimentation.

Tobacco is the second most heavily advertised product in the nation, according to the Illinois Department of Public Health website, with the tobacco industry spending $7 billion dollars annually to market its products. This equals more than $18 million a day. In Illinois alone, tobacco companies spend more than $288 million annually on consumer advertising.

Each year, tobacco use kills more than 425,000 Americans - more than 19,000 of them in Illinois.

Likewise, secondhand smoke can cause many of the same health problems for non-smokers as it does for regular smokers.

Four facts about second hand smoke are: spending approximately two hours in a smoky bar is equal to smoking up to four cigarettes; spending two hours in the smoking section of a restaurant is equal to smoking up to four cigarettes; spending 24 hours in the home of someone who smokes a pack a day is equal to smoking three cigarettes; and spending eight hours in a smoky office is equal to smoking up to six cigarettes.

With the statistics, one wonders why more bars are not smoke-free. California bars have been smoke-free since 1998. More than 1,000 of California's smallest bars show a 1.06 percent sales increase (comparing January 1998 to January 1997).

When bar owners are concerned with drops in sales, the statistics will tell them otherwise.

Opponents of the smoke-free workplace lay claim that it will make bars lose business, but sales tax facts suggest the opposite. According to a press release in 1998, similar arguments were made prior to the smoke-free bar component of the law. Comparing the first six months of California restaurant revenues in 1994 to the first six months of 1995, after restaurants went smoke-free, sales increased by 3.3 percent.

In Sacramento, approximately 70 percent of the 60 local bars surveyed, including many sports bars, indicated that implementation of the smoke-free bar law is going smoothly with no problems. In addition, 100 percent of 35 downtown bars in San Diego were in compliance, according to a report released by the San Diego office around the time of the Super Bowl, plus another 87 percent in the City of Coronado (in San Diego County).

Coincidentally, Emma Conlin, a graduate student in chemistry at SIU, was at Carboz Wednesday night. One year ago, Conlin moved to California. Then, she was a smoker and said it was difficult to get used to.

"The 'no smoking in bars' was not a lot of fun," Conlin said. There was a little garden area where people could go outside and smoke, but they had to leave their drinks inside, she said.

Now that she has quit, she likes the smoke-free atmosphere. Conlin added that some people only like to smoke when they drink. If they are not able to smoke when inside the bar, maybe it will help reduce their desire to smoke, she said.