Detroit — A smokeless tobacco and nicotine ban is now in place at city stadiums. The new ordinance led by Detroit City Councilman Fred Durhal III, and passed by the council 7-2, outlaws the usage of Zyn pouches and dip from Ford Field, Comerica Park, and Little Caesars Arena.
The ordinance went into immediate effect but could be vetoed by Mayor Mike Duggan—possibly a clever move for a guy running for governor and trying to win over working-class men.
In the meantime, sports fans now face yet another inconvenience to watch their favorite Detroit teams. This new law seems targeted at white guys. I’m sure black men use smokeless tobacco as well—Tony Gwynn and Barry Bonds come to mind—but there’s a reason some gas stations and convenience stores in Detroit don’t even bother carrying Grizzly Wintergreen.
Dipping has long been a baseball and hockey tradition, though it’s also part of the football world, best exhibited by Dan Campbell and his yellow bottom teeth. Many who played these sports growing up use dip or pouches to “lock in” to their daily tasks. Nicotine calms nerves, significantly relaxes tension, and narrows focus.
The morning dip, the after-lunch dip, and the after-dinner dip make up a common routine. Men who enjoy watching hockey or baseball require the oral fixation of packing a dip to focus on a game. But our managerial class, which seems intent on removing any enjoyment out of our daily lives, can’t abide that simple pleasure. They’re here to engineer away any vulgar working-class sensibilities.
With the cigarette war won, the next target for our frowning elites is smokeless tobacco. But why now, and why in Detroit?
It’s hard not to see this ordinance as vindictive towards right-wingers.
In 2021, the National Institute of Health published studies and data suggesting liberal Americans were losing ground in the fight against tobacco and nicotine products. Right on cue, liberal outlets started blaming right-wing culture for an increase in the use of dip and Zyn.
Despite that hysteria, this current attack seems almost random. There is no sweeping moral panic about nicotine. There isn’t even a movement to ban smokeless tobacco or nicotine from bars and restaurants.
Detroit’s ban is also ironic. A family must wade through the eye-watering stench of marijuana smoke flooding the parking lots as they walk to the stadium, but if they step through security with a lip of chew, they’ll get a misdemeanor and a $100 fine? Meanwhile, alcohol—1,000 times worse for your health and the safety of others—is being advertised and sold all around the stadium.
And how will this ban even be enforced? Will ushers be checking people’s lips? In a post-Covid Detroit, an hourly employee getting paid shit will peer deep into the mouths of strangers? Fat chance.
I find it terribly hard to believe Durhal’s phone was burning up with calls from parents and suburban sports fans pleading for a Zyn and Grizzly ban at LCA.
A local sports talk host whom I’ve never once seen in public without a Kodiak Wintergreen longcut dip said it best: “Laughable, most of us won’t stop.”
I’m not stopping. I haven’t even considered it.
Jay Murray is a writer for Michigan Enjoyer and has been a Metro Detroit-based professional investigator for 22 years. Follow him on X @Stainless31.
