Smoky logic abounds in bar theater scheme

During last year’s debate about the statewide workplace smoking ban in the Minnesota legislature, I kept asking, “why, oh why, does the Iron Range have to strike this pose again?” Here we are, a land of change-resistant Don Quixotes who howl at the moon to keep smoking rights but snooze when public dollars are funneled to shady deals or when schools continue to suffer in our own backyards.

Everyone capable of objective thought familiar with the political makeup of the state knew that the ban would pass and be signed into law, and that indoor smoking is a recognized health risk that has been outlawed in public buildings in some cases for decades. But our Range leaders insisted on making a stand based on libertarian grounds. They had their reasons. One Range lawmaker told me that he got dozens of constituent calls about the smoking ban but only one or two about schools throughout the entire 2007 session. Bar culture is big on the Range, and bar people like to smoke.

The ban passed mightily and the Range had the dual honor of not only losing “our” fight, but appearing backward to the state at large. Today, most restaurants are doing fine. Bar/restaurants in particular are doing great, by all accounts I’ve heard. Small town bars are, however, suffering a little or a lot. But studies show that the first year after a smoking ban is hard but gives way to better years as people realize how much they miss drinking in public.
Now we return to the topic in 2008 as another group of Don Quixotes try to ram through a loophole in the law regarding the use of cigarettes in theatrical productions. See, you’re allowed to light a cigarette indoors if it’s for a play that calls for smoking. So a Minnesota attorney, Mark Benjamin, is encouraging bars to hold “Tobacco Monologues,” or hastily produced “plays” that last all night and include everyone who wishes to smoke in the bar. A joint in Hill City was the first northern town to try it and now bars across the Range are adopting the idea, including the Sports Palace in Virginia as detailed in this Janna Goerdt story from the Duluth News-Tribune.

Benjamin and bar owners are acting pretty glib about their great idea, but this movement will only serve to close the theater loophole, which will not only leave them in the same spot but ruin future productions of “12 Angry Men” for the rest of us.
Here are my initial reactions to some of the arguments:

1) This debate isn’t about the right to smoke, which you have, but the right to smoke in a public place governed by health codes. That right, if it ever officially existed, no longer exists. Workplace smoking bans are becoming standard in the industrialized world.

2) I’m sorry that casinos are not subject to the smoking ban. They should be, but they are governed by different laws. I have to believe that the number of people from Virginia or Eveleth to Fortune Bay just to smoke indoors while drinking is overstated.

3) Give it time. I know I am not at financial risk by saying that, but smoking bans have taken time to become part of the culture in other places and will here too. Meantime, any business that is to survive long term must find ways to adjust to change. Hundreds of thousands of Minnesotans who never went to bars in part because of the smoke are available as potential new customers. What are you doing to get them to patronize your bar? (Hint: bad theater and additional smoke won’t work).

This is the ongoing subject for my newspaper column in progress for this upcoming Sunday so by all means enlighten me if you have thoughts.

Virginia bar joins the cast of taverns using smoking ban loophole
By Janna Goerdt, Duluth News-Tribune

VIRGINIA — Smokers were standing outside of many bars on Virginia’s main street Friday night, enjoying cigarettes in the cool air.

But the sidewalk in front of the Queen City Sports Palace was conspicuously empty — because the smokers there were smoking inside.

As of Thursday, the Sports Palace was one of the latest Minnesota bars to hop on the path to legal indoor smoking.

A quirk in Minnesota’s Freedom to Breathe Act, which bans smoking in most public workplaces, allows for smoking in theatrical productions. Today, a growing number of bars are following the lead of Cambridge, Minn., lawyer Mark Benjamin and staging tongue-in-cheek plays, with bar patrons as actors and actresses.

“I’m not breaking any laws,” Sports Palace owner Doug Foschi said. He ran the idea past the Virginia city attorney, who could find no reason why Foschi couldn’t stage “The Tobacco Monologues.” And so the play has gone on from 4 p.m. until 2 a.m. every night, and Foschi plans to keep it going.

Aside from an occasional arm flourish, there was plenty of smoking but seemed to be little acting going on among the festive crowd at the Sports Palace on Friday night. Bartenders passed out small yellow stickers for those who wanted to participate in the play, and about half of the patrons wore them.

“OK, I’ll quote Scarlett O’Hara,” said Virginia resident Robin Cronk, who was enjoying the chance to smoke in a bar again. “As God is my witness, I’ll never go into a bar without a cigarette again!”

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