Underground smokehouses open amid crackdown on smoking, strip clubs

Ohio's crackdown on strip joints and barroom smoking has spawned as many as two dozen underground nightclubs that operate in houses across Cleveland.

Detective Tom Shoulders, a 2nd District vice sergeant, compares the smokehouses of 2008 to the gin houses of Prohibition in the Roaring '20s.

"You put too many restrictions on people, they're going to find someplace else to go for their entertainment," he said.

Informants tell police that smokehouse patrons, primarily white suburban men, bring their own liquor, cigarettes and cigars.