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