The people on the bus go puff, puff, puff

Still want to puff in public?

Washington’s tough new Clean Indoor Air Act has left the nicotine fiend two options:

1. You can huddle outside in the cold like a smoke-billowing leper. (Stay 25 feet away from the doorway, pal.)

2. Or you can drive 60 miles west to the Adams County hub of Ritzville.

There you can torch those cancer sticks inside the cramped confines of Walt Foley’s Smoking Bus.

You can’t miss the Smoking Bus. It’s the only used yellow school bus to be found on Main Street in this farming community of 2,000.

Foley parked it in front of his restaurant/lounge – the Whisperin’ Palms – not long after the Clean Indoor Air Act went into effect Dec. 8. The initiative, which was passed in the November election, snuffs out smoking in public places and job sites across the state.

But Foley said it also stubbed out a considerable chunk of his profit margin.

“It’s taken my rights away,” groused Foley, who estimated that 80 percent of his patrons smoke. “I don’t have the right to give my customers what they want.”

In the good old smoky days, Palms patrons would light up and linger. Then came the ban. Foley said business dropped off drastically. The customers who did show would down a drink and skedaddle.

So Foley had a flash of inspiration.

Getting a bus was no problem. He already owned the thing. Foley adorned its side panels with signs that read “Smoking Bus” and drove it downtown.

He ran an extension cord inside the small vehicle to power a space heater. A sad little Christmas tree stands near the back seat. This may be Ritzville, but the Smoking Bus ain’t the Ritz.

I know. I stepped inside Friday morning to find five smokers blowing.

As one resident noted, “There’s enough smoke in there to cure hams.”

Kirk Danekas, a former Ritzville mayor, was the group’s lone cigar smoker.

Every few seconds, Danekas’ cell phone would chirp. I asked him what he did for a living.

“I own the funeral home.”

From all the calls, business must be booming. Maybe this explains Whisperin’ Palms’ attrition.

I guess I was lucky. A couple of nights ago, Foley said nine smokers were blazing away inside his gasp chamber.

If converting a school bus into a cigarette break room isn’t a big enough irony, I’ll go you one better. The Whisperin’ Palms is located right next door to the Adams County Health District.

Which brings us to the question of legality.

Foley said he got an OK from the police chief.

Karen Potts oversees tobacco prevention programs for the health district. She told me the Smoking Bus “probably is” in violation. As proof, she quoted a section of the Clean Indoor Air Act that defines a public place as being “any portion of any building or vehicle used by and open to the public.”

Even so, someone has to complain about the bus before any action occurs.

“We’re not the smoking police,” added Potts. “I don’t plan on going out there at 1:30 in the morning and count burning embers.”

Good. I say leave the bus smokers alone. They aren’t gassing anyone but themselves.

Well, except for me. And I was only exposed to their toxic fog for about a half-hour.

So it probably only shaved about two weeks off my life.

Most of the smokers I met are part of a coffee-and-gossip gang that meets in the Palms every morning at 9:30.

After wheezing my way out of the bus, I went inside the restaurant to say howdy. I’m glad I did. The old boys regaled me with tales that sounded suspiciously like ancient jokes. But they made me laugh and forget that I reeked like a bowling alley ashtray.

Many of their stories were about a legendary farmer named Speed, who apparently expired years ago.

Speed, according to the gang, was given to strong drink in regular and staggering amounts. Hauled into court for some alcohol-related offense, a judge asked: “Speed, have you ever tried AA?”

To which the remorseful man supposedly replied: “Your honor, if it’s on the shelf, then I’ve tried it.”

Ritzville rocks.