CSHTML Script - Display HTML if SQL Query Returns Null

I have a CSHTML Script a Pal has written, I am making some changes, I have a SQL Query as a variable and if this SQL query returns NULL then I want to display separate HTML than to if it returns results. I have copied out the relevant parts of the code below.

@{
var db = Database.Open("3.2.0");  //db holds Database to Open
var sql = "select ticketid, Title, description, category, updatedon, updatedby, severity            from dbo._ServiceStatus ";  //Sql To Pass through 
}

@if (@sql == null) {
        <h3>There are no issues at the moment</h3>
        }
        else{
    foreach(var row in db.Query(sql)) //for each row returned in the SQL Query
    {
        <div class='box_lrg'><div class='box_top'></div><div class='box_middle'>
            <h2 class="title">@row["Title"]</h2> 
            <p class="ticket">TicketID: @row["TicketId"]</p> 
            <div class="clear"></div>
            <p class="description">@row["Description"]</p>
            <p class="updatedon"><em>Updated On:</em><br />@row["UpdatedOn"]</p>
            <p class="updatedby"><em>Updated By:</em><br />@row["UpdatedBy"]</p>
            <p class="severity"><em>Severity:</em><br />@row["Severity"]</p>  
            </div><div class='box_bottom'><p class="category">Category:    @row["Category"]</p>    
            </div></div>                                                                                                                      
    }
        }

It all runs good except the h3 tag stating "there are no issues" does not show when that table is empty.

Any ideas welcome