City Snuffs Cigs In 'Jersey Boys'

CHICAGO (WBBM) - The Chicago production of "Jersey Boys" is missing something: cigarettes.

The Chicago Tribune reports that somebody complained to police about smoking in "Jersey Boys," and now the smoking has been stopped - and the show's been changed. There is a smoking ban in Chicago.

WBBM's Steve Miller has details.  

No smoking in "Jersey Boys"?  No, of course not in the theatre. 

But not even on stage?

What's a Jersey Boy to do?

"They can do something else," says 28th Ward Alderman Ed Smith, the chairman of the City Council Health Committee who pushed Chicago's smoking ordinance.

"You don't have to smoke to portray a point.  They can do that.  If we make exceptions to the rule for them, we may as well make exceptions for everyone else.  My position is, the law says you can't smoke.  And they shouldn't do it."

The law here does not distinguish between tobacco and herbal cigarettes that are normally used on stage.

"Jersey Boys" productions in New York and London reportedly include smoking in the act.

The Tribune reports that it took producers here about a week to figure out how to remove smoking from the show.

Broadway in Chicago issued a statement this afternoon:  “Yes, smoking was phased out of the Chicago company of ‘Jersey Boys’ last week.   ‘Jersey Boys’ hopes that this change will only be temporary so that Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons can live again like they did in the '60s.”

"Jersey Boys" is the 2006 Tony Award winner for Best Musical. It follows the story of the young New Jersey men who became the 1960s pop group Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons or, as the publicity for the show says, "the rags-to-rock-to riches tale or four blue collar kids working their way from the streets of Newark to the heights of stardom."