Bully's takes new approach

Bully's Sports Bar owner Paul Sonner will open a new location of his Reno-based chain of sports bars next to RC Willey in South Meadows late this month that he calls a prototype for other businesses seeking a way to accommodate people who want to smoke and eat in the same location.

That's been illegal in Nevada since the Nevada Clean Indoor Air Act took effect in December of 2006.

Sonner says gaming revenues at most locations are down roughly 10-12 percent since the law was enacted.

In order to reunite food and gaming, last year he opened three "Smokin' Bully's" scaled-down versions of a Bully's themed-bar located a shop space or two from a main Bully's so that takeout food can be sent over to hungry patrons.

But at the new Bully's at Damonte Ranch and Steamboat Parkway, Sonner could not secure additional space for a Smokin' Bully's so he built one inside the 7,000-square-foot Bully's footprint.

The new 235-square-foot South Meadows Smokin Bully's will be separated from the rest of the building by

glass partitions and includes two high-powered exhaust fans in the ceiling. The location has a separate outside entrance, and doors leading to the kitchen and to the main bar are weathersealed. Dampers in the fans control air pressure to keep smoke from rushing out the doors and into the main bar when they are opened.

"We don't want people sitting out there smelling smoke," he says.

Plans for the building were approved without a hitch. "The health department loved it, and everyone signed off on it," Sonner says. "I think once it opens everyone will copy that idea it it is kind of best of both worlds. We have had no opposition or interference. People think we do a good job."

Says Tony Macaluso, senior environmentalist with the Washoe County District Health Department: "We reviewed their set of plans, and if built the way it was designed it should meet the intent."

The concept did force Sonner to make changes in the layout of the main Bully's, primarily abandoning the signature horseshoe bar. Additionally, service staff will only have one entrance to the back of the house instead of two.

Sonner also plans another Bully's in Spanish Springs, but instead of a bar-in-a-bar, or a big-brother bar with a little brother across the street, this model with have separate smoking and non-smoking bars, both are in the same building.

"We would rather have two locations," he says. "It makes them look like all the rest, and it makes them more functional."