The Impact of County and City-Level Smoking Bans on Bars

Before you decide I should hang up the writing career and pursue a career in politics, since I've obviously got the whole hypocrite thing down to a science, hear me out.

Last week, Baltimore City's legislature passed a ban that will prohibit smoking in all bars and restaurants in the city limits. In doing so, the city joined several Maryland counties that have already done away with smoking in public places.

Yes, I'm A Card (or Pack) Carrying Member of the Dark Side

I'm a smoker. I have a cigarette with a beer when I'm out in a pub, because to me they go together like peanut butter and jelly. At work, I trek my way through wind, sleet and snow to the designated smoking areas where the outcasts of society huddle to get our nicotine fix.

Amongst my Marlboro-toting comrades, I am the snarkiest of banned smokers. I gripe long and loud about how if the government was really concerned about public health, they'd evaluate sending smokers out into the work world and making us slink off to Timbuk II for a quick fix. After all, if we really cared about people's health, wouldn't we also be banning ridiculously long workweeks, horrendous traffic, gas guzzlers, fast food and neighbors who can't do their gardening without showing plumber's crack?

We smokers are a bad bunch. We huddle together in our regulated corners under the glaring "Designated Smoking Area!" signs that brand us as pariahs, and sigh that the only way to keep from choking on our own tongues when we have to interact with "customers" in the workplace is to sneak out for a smoke. If we're banning cigarettes, can we impose fines on the rude behavior and blatant mistreatment of public servants that has the smokers among us constantly tweaking for a fix, too?

Smoking Is Gross. And Bad For You Too.

But in spite of all this spewing with my fellow smokers, I do understand where the ever-increasing bans are coming from. Smoking is a health hazard. Non-smokers don't want to breathe in my second-hand smoke any more than I want to endure the whole low-rider jeans fashion statement. Even I don't like smoking in restaurants. Cigarettes and filet mignon just don't mix.

But What About The Little Corner Bar?

Putting the feelings of smokers and non-smokers alike aside, though, I have a hard time with the way Maryland has instituted bans on a county and city level. For certain small businesses, the outcome is little more than a death knell.

Baltimore is an on-the-map city featuring the Inner Harbor, Fell's Point, Federal Hill and Canton, just to name a few of the hotspots. There is no shortage of dining, clubbing, art, fashion, culture, and trendy martini bars in Crabtown. But at its heart, Baltimore is an industrial, blue-collar city. The core of this town is not in the well-heeled professionals who gather at the newest happy hour hotspot for tapas and talk of what they do for a living. It is in the lesser-known communities where families have staked their claims for generations.

For every trendy, touristy spot in Baltimore, there are two or three off-the-beaten track dive pubs that have catered to the locals forever. Their DJ is a jukebox, their beer is served in cans and bottles, and their menu is little more than beef jerky or a bag of chips. On special occasions, like a Raven's game day, there might also be peanuts and pretzels.

These are the places where the locals who want to have a few beers and a cigarette go when they take off the shackles of another day of working alongside the trendsetting go-getters. These are the smoky corners where neighbors congregate and dream of hitting Lotto. The bartender has been there for years, and she greets her clients with a Marlboro Light in her hand and a "how ya doin', hon" as she sets the beer she already knows they want in front of them.

These joints don't make their living off of the latest hot appetizers or the newest cosmopolitan drink. They aren't places to exchange business cards and showcase your fashion sense. No one's discussing art unless it involves debating the pros and cons of a new tattoo. If anyone's dancing, it's probably because they've had a few too many.

No, these are the little corner dives dotting the city's neighborhoods, the last remaining bastion of sanity for those who'd rather just pop in wearing jeans and a t-shirt, grab a beer and talk with others who could care less about yoga, gym memberships, fast-track-careers, diet fads and how to look twenty when you're really forty-five. They're where you go to watch a game on a small TV, find out how your neighbor's kids are doing in school, run into that old friend who does home remodeling on the weekends and line him up to come help you paint your house, and laugh over the drunken antics of the guy who is a permanent fixture on the corner barstool. They're where everyone knows your name and no one cares whether you're wearing makeup or have an outdated haircut.

And more often than not, the people who frequent these little dusky dive bars do so because they like to have a cigarette with their beer. The smoke is part of the atmosphere, as much as the tacky pictures on the wall and the scum in the bathroom. These are the hangouts of those who think that a brew goes better with a smoke, and who want to sit at the bar and indulge in both.

Never have I encountered a non-smoker who lamented that they couldn't walk into one of these dive bars. When people walk into Corner Joe's, they aren't thinking about their health. There are a million other options for the non-smoker's night out, and hanging out with the local Budweiser crowd and an outdated jukebox was never high on the list anyway. I know many non-smokers, and all of them would rather go somewhere busier, hipper, cooler, trendier, or all of the above anyway - with or without the smoke.

Wanna Smoke? Just Go Around The Corner.

But in Baltimore City, the Corner Joes of the world will soon be smoke-free. What was once the last "designated smoking area" of untrendy local yokels who didn't give a rat's behind about salsa dancing, club music or appletinis and just wanted a cigarette with their brewski will now be gone.

Gone, but not forgotten.

My father has owned and operated one of these little dive bars for years. He earns his living by providing a place where you can have a night out that doesn't involve impressing others with tales of your career and your latest health awareness campaign. In his bar, you can light up a smoke and listen to the oldies but goodies and not have to fast-track with the rest of the world for a while.

His little bar, one of the many that make up the city landscape, happens to sit just blocks from the city/county line. From where his locals claim their bar stools and fire up their cheap cigarettes, you can easily walk a few blocks over to the Baltimore County line.

Baltimore County, which is one of about half the counties in the state where a smoking ban has not yet been passed. Baltimore County, where locals will now congregate for those beer-soaked philosophical discussions and Marlboro Reds.

If you're in the business of serving good food or if your establishment offers more of a club atmosphere, you can probably survive this kind of blow. Your regular customers who smoke will probably still come back for your famous hot wings, even though they'd rather eat somewhere that they can have an after-dinner cigarette. The non-smokers who shunned your place of business before may even start dropping some money in your coffers. If you're the proprietor of a bigger bar that's known for that awesome Thursday-night bluegrass band, you'll probably survive too. Your regulars will still come to hear the band, even if they could just walk up the street to another bar and have a cigarette in peace.

But if your business is that of being the quieter, old-school dive bar where all the smoking locals come for a brew, then you're screwed. The very atmosphere that drew in your regulars has been redefined by the smoking ban.

If, like my father, your bar happens to sit just blocks away from where the locals can walk up the street and get away from the ban, then you're really in trouble.

I don't see an influx of non-smokers pouring into this tiny dive bar, their faces alight with joy that they can now play the old jukebox and chat with the 70-year-old guy still sitting on the corner barstool in a newly smoke-free atmosphere. They've already got their choice of smoke-free hangouts, places where discussions of the evils of second-hand smoke and the sublime idiocy of drunken puffers are all the rage.

And so, I wait and watch and hope for the entire state to just jump on the bandwagon and ban smoking in public places all together. If we're going to regulate smoking in bars, even little corner bars where all people want to do is talk, drink and smoke, then let's do it across the board.

Otherwise, the playing field is just too unfair. Who wants to trudge outside at Dive Bar A to have a smoke when a half a mile up the street everyone in Dive Bar B is still puffing away? All we've really done is set up a scenario where establishments that can still allow smoking will reap the benefits of bans in some areas, while the little guys up the street go out of business and they and their workers hit the unemployment line.

Who knows, maybe my father's bar will survive the inequity by replacing the bar stools with yoga mats and offering up pre-packaged twig-and-leaf bars instead of beef jerky and Cheetos. Maybe all the adamant non-smokers who campaigned for such a widespread ban even though they never intended to set foot in a dive bar anyway will continue their outcry and win the whole war, at least leveling the playing field in the process.

Just the thought of it makes me want a cigarette.