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Feed Me Your Cigarettes!!! My Day with the Smoke Eater

by Erin  |  October 20, 2011 - 12:06pm

Last Friday I got to hang out with something that I've been looking forward to for a long time: the Smoke Eater. Over the course of the day I got to know the big guy pretty well and he became a part of the team.

The Smoke Eater looks like a vending machine, made out of metal, covered in graffiti with a big "Smoke Eater" scrawled across the front. The idea was that we'd place him on street corners and other busy areas, and get people to put their cigarettes into the holes where you'd normally put change. When they did, lights would go off, bells would ring, and prizes would fall out of the dispenser.

Even better, we programmed the Smoke Eater with phrases that he could yell at people as they passed by like: "Hey you, I can see you smoking", "Feed me your cigarettes" and "Nice pants". You should have seen some of the reactions that we got from that last one!

We started out on Broadway outside of the Blenz near Cambie street at 8am. The Smoke Eater was hungry that morning and we were hoping to get a lot of people excited about feeding him right way. Unfortunately for him, it turned out that there just aren't that many people heading to school and work in the morning who smoke.

Lots of people stopped to check the big guy out, but no one had any cigarettes on them, so The Smoke Eater stayed empty and our pile of prizes stayed the same.

The staff at Blenz were amazing - they hooked us up with coffee, a place to get out of the cold and a bunch of giveaways for the Smoke Eater.

Next, we went over to Granville street to catch the lunch crowd while they were out for their lunchtime smokes. Good news / bad news = it's hard to find smokers in BC, even at lunch time in the heart of downtown Vancouver. We did however, meet some awesome foreign students. They were excited to get rid of their cigarettes and mentioned that they felt out of place smoking here because none of the interesting people they had met so far were smokers. Amazing!

We spent the rest of the afternoon travelling around, meeting people and getting some footage at some of the most incredible places around. Stay tuned for our video to see more shots.

At about the same time that people were getting off work and heading out for their Friday nights, we went back to Granville street. This time the streets were bustling with energy. We still didn't see hardly any smokers but we could barely get set up because people were so excited to see the Smoke Eater.

Once we finally did get things going, people started to flock almost immediately. Restaurant workers were rushing away from their tables, only to find that the Smoke Eater was barking out demands for cigarettes. Suddenly the one or two individuals at each business who actually did smoke became the centre of attention as everyone else helped them to get rid of their cigarettes in exchange for prizes like badminton sets, snacks, bouncy balls and flowers.

The crowd continued to swell and the energy rose to the point that everyone up and down Granville street was craning their necks to see what was going on.

Finally, we had collected so many cigarettes that we were completely out of prizes, and the dozens of people slowly dispersed. It had been a crazy day! We had been all over the place, checking out some of the coolest spots that BC has to offer and we developed a pretty strong relationship with a big ugly machine. The best part was hearing from so many people that they had been thinking about quitting, and they had decided to throw their last cigarettes ever into the Smoke Eater.

Here's to hoping that all of those people are successful in their effort to quit. Thanks to everyone who helped us out that day - I had a blast!

Want to get involved yourself? Click below to enter to the Smoke-Free Lifestyle contest: