Did the Smoking Ban Kill Michigan’s Local Taverns?

Emmett — Michigan is filled with small towns like Emmett. One little main street, some houses around it, then farmland as far as the eye can see. They might have a small restaurant, a farm supply store, and a gas station if they’re lucky. The most important spot, of course, is the local tavern, the watering hole serving out drinks to hardworking farm boys and girls year after year.

The thing is, small town bar culture has been decimated the last few decades. All over Michigan, beloved locals succumbed to the pressure and shut their doors. What’s been happening to Michigan’s farm town taverns?

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Michigan lost 43% of its bars from 1998 to 2022, with nearly 1,000 bars closed. Small-town taverns, bars with less than five employees, were hit particularly hard, declining from 1,249 to just 506 bars over that same period.

The bar scene in Emmett is a great example. Historically, the town was settled by Irish farmers, and they’ve held onto that heritage. The one remaining bar in Emmett is testament to that—Scooters Pub, “An Irish Tradition,” with a sign festooned by four-leaf clovers.

Across the street lies a long-closed bar, in a much older looking building. The Lion & Eagle, named and styled like an Irish pub from the old country. By the look of it, the bars been shut down for ages, and the property doesn’t seem maintained.

Investigating the building didn’t turn up much. It was briefly an antique shop, as of several years ago. Before that, it served as one of Emmett’s local taverns.

Whoever the most recent proprietor was, they were clearly a fan of The Simpsons. There’s a larger-than-life sculpture of a Duff Beer can still standing in the overgrown side yard, worn down from years of exposure.

It’s the one tourist attraction in Emmett, still listed on sites like Roadside America that track these sorts of kitschy curiosities. Supposedly, there was once a giant pack of cigarettes to go with the beer can, but that seems to have disappeared. Another victim of the laws prohibiting smoking in bars, no doubt.

We can joke about that, but by many accounts, the prohibition of smoking in bars spelled the beginning of the decline of Michigan’s local bar scene. Smokers either stopped going out to bars or quit smoking and started favoring bigger bars and chain restaurants.

Then, of course, there were the two big economic blows. The 2008 financial crisis hit restaurants and bars very hard, and then the 2020 pandemic forced a major crisis. The rising cost of bar tabs due to inflation, and the decline in disposable income among consumers, played big roles as well.

Aside from those externalities, what else can we blame? Shifting consumer habits, no doubt. It’s widely discussed that people these days drink less than any prior generation. Not only that, but people’s tastes have shifted over the years.

Millennial aesthetes demand better food and drinks, boomers are happier going to big chain places, and undoubtedly it’s been hard for local taverns to keep up. For the most part, these weren’t gourmet restaurants. They usually had just some fried food and a couple beers on tap.

There’s also just the general decline in socializing and going out. People spend more time at home than ever before, content with the screen-based entertainment on their phones and TVs. The inclination to get dressed and go out to the local tavern and hang out simply isn’t there as much as it used to be.

It’s a shame, in the end, because that would be one way to solve the increasing social isolation people seem to feel. Having a local tavern they can head off to for a cheeky weeknight beer, running into neighbors, friends, and acquaintances. Small human moments like that, resisting atomization.

The village of Emmett still has one tavern to hang out in, a legacy of their proud Irish drinking heritage. The abandoned bar across the street is a sad sight though, a relic from better days when a small town like this could support a few local bars, not just one.

It sounds crazy, but rejuvenating Michigan’s small towns just might require all of us to drink more. So head out to your local, if you’re lucky enough to still have one, take up a barstool and drink a few beers. It’s your civic duty, and you might even enjoy yourself.

Twist my arm, you say. If we have to, we have to. Anything for Michigan’s small towns.