Smoking ban creates tension between barkeep, smokers

In order to pick up some extra money, a few years ago I began bartending one night a week at a Spokane hotel lounge. That weekly suffering is worth more than the salary because it prevents my lovely but stern wife from regularly announcing to our friends and family that “he don’t work a lick.”

So Spokane’s new smoking ban and the 25-foot no-no zone is more than a curiosity for me; it is a significant change in the workplace. I will never again have the pleasure of cleaning the butts out of an ashtray.

I’ve always been wary of smokers. Their attitude of defying death each time they lit up indicated they had a courage that I did not, even if their courage was self-destructive. In that certain way, they seemed a bit menacing. Maybe they were capable of anything?

But, in a bar, cigarettes are more for being sociable than looking tough. They are used as comfort in solitude by some, a diversion for the nervous, a conversation starter for others (“Care for a smoke?”), an instrument for flirting (“Can I bum a smoke?”), building bridges with nonsmokers (“This is my last pack, ever!”) and as a sign of worldliness by posers who don’t really smoke.

No one knows how many seductions have begun in bars with the offer of a cigarette. I have always thought that future romance could be predicted by looking closely at the faces of a man and woman as he holds fire up to her cigarette. And, oh my goodness, there are surely implications when she lights up his cigarette.

The smoking ban could have disrupted the tranquil society of the bar, but I have not noticed much change except that more people are coming in wearing parkas and bunny boots. The smoking ban was imposed during the coldest part of the season so trekking 25 feet out into the Spokane winter weather for a smoke sometimes requires snowshoes and goggles.

The saloon proprietor, as well as the smoker, can be fined under the new law and each consecutive fine gets bigger.

This law against smoking has subtly increased the tension between the smokers and the nonsmokers, and between the barkeep and the smokers. I believe these smokers must be watched even more closely now. Not only do they still have a dangerous devil-may-care attitude, but now they huddle together outside, where their plotting and treachery cannot be monitored.

So I sometimes step outside the building in order to scold any smoker less than 25 feet from the door or an “operable” window, and to watch for signs of insurrection.

Last week I made my usual surveillance.

After expressing my righteous indignation at the violators, some of whom I determined were approximately 23 feet away from the door, I turned to go back inside. One smoker shouted, “Why don’t you come over here an’ do something ‘bout it?”

I suddenly remembered I had some glasses to wash and quickened my step.

Then a cantaloupe-size snowball hit me in the back of the head.

That confirmed my belief about the “self-destructive attitude” of smokers. Not even the most death-defying daredevil would intentionally smack his bartender in the head with a snowball. Not if he ever wanted a drink again.