Smoking ban in Philadelphia approved

[Diomedes]

smoke-easies in Phila

http://www.philly.com/philly/columnists/20070326_Stu_Bykofsky___Smoke-easys_ignore_the_tobacco_ban.html

Stu Bykofsky | 'Smoke-easys' ignore the tobacco ban
I'M SIPPING A Blue Moon ale in a Philadelphia bar, Janis Joplin is wailing about Bobby McGee and I'm thinking a smoke would go great about now.

I take out one of Baby Cakes' Parliament Lights and fire it up.

I'm smoking in a bar in Philadelphia and nobody says, "Boo!"

There are 20 other people, smokers and nonsmokers, hanging out, enjoying themselves, not doing any harm to anyone (except maybe themselves). The bar is spacious, the NCAA is on the TV screens, beer pennants hang from the ceiling, and through the large windows I see rain falling.

The owner is sitting at the bar chewing nicotine gum. He's a former smoker.

Also a former cop.

"I'm an irresponsible bar-owner," he says with a smile.

Despite the smoking ban - because of it, actually - Philadelphia now has "smoke-easies," a play on "speakeasies" that came to us with the Prohibition of alcohol. Prohibition was enacted in 1920, repealed in 1933 and largely ignored in between. I'm surprised at how many Americans meekly obey smoking bans.

This is about Philadelphians who don't.

For reasons even the dimmest Nicotine Nazi would understand, I'm not naming names or giving locations of the "smoke-easies" I found.

Why do the owners risk fines?

I'll call the proprietor Joe Friday, to honor his former trade. His smoke-easy is within walking distance of one of Philadelphia's universities.

"It's my bar, it's my four walls, cigarettes are legal," he says. "Why can't I allow my customers to smoke?"

Six months before he opened, "a beautiful-looking restaurant, [he names it, I won't], opened a few blocks from here. They never allowed smoking. That is their right," he says, leaving unspoken his belief that it's his right to permit it.

A Health Department inspector dropped in not long ago. No one was smoking, but he asked why Friday had ashtrays on the bar. Friday told him they were heirlooms, something like that.

The law requires bar managers to enforce the ban by telling patrons they can't smoke, but they are cautioned not to take any action other than to call the Health Department to report smokers.

The Health Department has a hotline to report smoking in bars. (If you want the number, look it up yourself, snitch.)

Friday says no patron ever complained to him, "but we did have a complaint to a barmaid."

He tells his employees to say, "We don't condone it," but tells me: "We can't enforce [the ban]. It's not our job."

Just 1.91 MapQuested miles away is another bar, smaller, more Irish, catering more to neighborhood residents. The owner - I'll call him Seamus - is a smoker.

As in the first, NCAA is on the TV, but no jukebox is playing. The dozen customers are singing Broadway show tunes beneath a ceiling glowing with Christmas lights.

It's that kind of a place.

Unlike Friday, he's been written up by Health.

Who ratted him out?

Health inspectors won't ever say, but Seamus says, "It's either a neighbor, a competitor or sometimes a customer, but it's usually your competitors."

Seamus tries "to adhere to the letter of the law" and tells customers, "You cannot smoke in here." If they do, "there's nothing within my legal authority to tell you not to smoke," he says.

Seamus' father was a cop for 35 years, but "I'm not in that business. I'm in the entertainment business," he says.

"I have military men come in here, they're just back from Iraq. If anyone, they have the right to smoke, you know," Seamus says.

He wouldn't stop them, even if he could.

I'm sure there are other smoke-easys around town where owners don't enforce the law, due to philosophy or maybe lethargy.

Some owners will apply for a waiver to the ban available to bars that do 80 percent or more of their gross in alcohol, 20 percent or less in food.

Anti-ban activist Michael J. McFadden estimates that 500 Philly bars might squeeze through the loophole "for the sake of their smoking staff and customers" and also to avoid complaints from neighbors when smokers are forced to stand outside and smoke late at night.

(Local "free-choice" activists coordinate through McFadden's linked Web sites at www.antibrains.com.)

Joe Friday will file for a waiver. "If there's a legal way out, I'll go that way. I don't like being vulnerable," he says. Seamus serves too much food to qualify.

Once these waivers come through, Philly will have Smoking Ban Lite.

Smokers will have some bars, nonsmokers will have many bars and everyone will be happy - except for the Nicotine Nazis who can't stand reasonable compromise.

btw...like it couldn't be found out right away what bar this guy owns/where it is.  how many ex cops own bars?  how many are less than two miles from an Irish pub?  do the math...locals must know the bar just from the info provided alone without digging at all.

[SD_Eagle5]

Its probably this place near Frankford and Cottman, that fits the criteria and I know they don't enforce the smoking ban.

[mussa]

i smoked in two diff places this past weekend in philly, no problems

[rjs246]

ive never been known as a worldy or very smart person and i dont pretend to be...

[ice grillin you]

word

better to be a clean smelling idiot tho than a smoke infested genius

[Diomedes]

how would you know?

[ice grillin you]

because i hate cigarettes more than anything in life

[Diomedes]

yeah, that's why you wouldn't know the difference between being an prissy idiot and a smelly genius.

[Seabiscuit36]

I luv me some smokes.  Seriously, it was a matter of time and the second that Omally won office everyone knew smoking was done in MD.  I smoke, i don't think in bars it should be mandatory as it seems they set up the law.

[ice grillin you]

yeah, that's why you wouldn't know the difference between being an prissy idiot and a smelly genius.

all i know is you brought us good luck...dio moves into town and BAM no more smoking

all praise due dio

[Rome]

No one hates cigarettes more than me and even I think smoking bans in bars are re-farging-tarded.

I will say, though, that several years down the line bars have adjusted nicely here in Florida because the state had the common sense to allow a specific type of bar to have smoking while disallowing it in others.  It's all based on the amount of food you sell as a percentage of your gross sales.

It was a compromise that saved thousands of establishments throughout the state, and for once, the state made a good move.

Philly should consider doing the same.

[ice grillin you]

philly does do the same

[Diomedes]

I luv me some smokes.  Seriously, it was a matter of time and the second that Omally won office everyone knew smoking was done in MD.  I smoke, i don't think in bars it should be mandatory as it seems they set up the law.

don't kid yourself into thinking this passes because of O'Malley.  Any other candidate would have passed it, too.

[Rome]

According to the article the waivers haven't come through yet.

[Diomedes]

I want to smoke again.  It's been four and a half years.   I deserve another couple years on by this point, right?