March 3- 9, 2005

slant

Get Lit

A bartender's take on the proposed smoking ban.

by Peter Woodall

Y'know, as a bartender, I love listening to smokers talk about a possible smoking ban in Philly. When I close my eyes, they start to sound a little like members of the French Resistance, ready to wage heroic battle against those anti-smoking "Nazis" trying to take away their "rights."

Yo, what about my lungs? The notion that people's rights are being trampled is silly. The government regulates a number of personal behaviors that harm other people, namely drunk driving. The economic arguments are equally flimsy. Smokers say they'll stop going out, but everyone knows addicts are liars, and the positive numbers coming out of New York and California prove it. Going out is fun; staying home is boring, and there's no easy way to do it without sounding ridiculous. "Want to go out?" "Nah, I'm going to stay home and smoke." And who's going to go to the suburbs to smoke? The suburbs suck.

Bartenders and waiters have been lousy advocates for a smoke-free workplace because so many smoke themselves (and because smokers tip better). But as an occasional smoker myself, I'm not going to let the appearance of hypocrisy get in the way. I hate sounding like such a whiny, nonsmoking square, but I have a right to a carcinogen-free workplace, as well as the right to wreck my health on my own time. Just like everyone else.

People tell me if I don't like the way things are I should get another job. That's what they used to tell workers before we had health and safety laws. Don't like breathing coal dust all day long? Get another job. The fortunate thing about bars and restaurants is they can be made completely safe, unlike say, mining, which is inherently dangerous. My favorite idea is allowing smoking after 10 p.m. Because cigarette smoke magically stops being bad for you late at night, right?

Twenty years from now, the only bars where you'll be able to smoke will be in North Carolina and countries in the developing world. Smoking and bars, which currently seem so natural together, so right, will go together like carts and horses for the next generation, something from a different era. It's a fait accompli, so why not get it over with? To paraphrase John Kerry, who wants to be the last person to die from a mistaken policy? If we're going to wait, we might as well wait forever, become a smoking mecca, turn it into a tourism marketing ploy. The slogan could be "enjoy the freedom to smoke in the birthplace of freedom." Old, unreconstructed barflys might even start moving here to die.

If anything will be lost when smoking is banned, it's the idea that bars exist outside society's rules as places where you can do pretty much whatever you want. Bars are holdovers from the Wild West with the bouncer as sheriff. They started out as disreputable places avoided by polite company, and they remain refuges from bosses and children and spouses. It seems a shame to lose some of that feel, but insofar as banning smoking would create outlaw bars, something will also be gained.

What smokers may not realize is that making something illegal makes it more fun (see Prohibition). There will be a small percentage of bars that ignore the ban and smokers will know which ones they are long before Licenses and Inspections catches on. There they'll be able to enjoy the thrill of the illicit, something that gets harder to come by as one gets older; you have to keep upping the ante. Smoking crack is socially unacceptable and personally destructive, however, so recapturing the feeling of smoking in the boys' (or girls') room is something to be cherished.

There is just so much for smokers to look forward to! Hangovers will be less severe, colds will disappear more quickly and for the single, it will offer expanded opportunities to mingle with the opposite sex. Smokers can bond while standing outside bitching about the unfairness of it all through chattering teeth on cold winter nights. And smokers are more highly sexed than nonsmokers, studies say, further enhancing one's chances. The people who will truly suffer are the neighbors who will be forced to listen to lame pickup lines late into the night. You have my sympathy, but this is one you'll just have to take for the team. My lungs thank you in advance.

Peter Woodall is a bartender. But you probably figured that out already. If you would like to respond to this Slant or have one of your own (850 words), contact Duane Swierczynski, editor in chief, 123 Chestnut St., third floor, Phila., Pa., 19106, or e-mail Duane Swierczynski.