Smoky Bar Leaves Her Fuming

As soon as the bar door swung open, I knew I was in hell.

Or my version of it, anyway.

A smoke-filled room.

On this, my second visit to Ireland’s 32, a Van Nuys pub, I had expected otherwise.

After all, smoking had been banned in bars by state law, hadn’t it?

So, my hope was this celebration of a friend’s promotion would be an improvement over the last such party at the same bar before the law passed.

After that night, my sinuses weren’t speaking to me for days. And my clothes--even my bra--smelled as if they had been soaked in a dirty ashtray.

I mention the bra to marvel at tobacco’s ability to permeate barriers and cling to all in its path. To literally get under the skin of those it disgusts, as well as those under its addictive thrall.

The latter bunch was in Ireland’s 32 that night, staging a kind of Custer’s Last Stand for Smokers Rights. I respect the power of the addiction, really I do.

Take my dad. Twenty-five years after quitting cold turkey, he started smoking again while my stepmother was waiting for a lung transplant. She dragged around her oxygen tank gasping for air, while he puffed away in the garage.

Still, the scofflaws at the bar that night looked awfully silly.

A couple of women with Marcia Brady hair and set jaws madly puffing away reminded me of 2-year-olds fighting a losing battle with authority. And what about the paragon of maturity who stationed himself in a spot where he could blow smoke toward our tables?

That was after my colleague’s wife launched a protest about the smoking. She had almost singlehandedly gotten smoking banned in a mall in another state, but her indignation that night was for naught.

The bartender with whom she had a few words wouldn’t budge. He said disingenuously that if customers chose to light up, there was nothing the bar could do but provide ashtrays.

She asked if that meant it was OK to smoke marijuana too, since both were now illegal.

He didn’t see the parallel.

Clearly, the bar owner and smoking patrons viewed the ban as a temporary inconvenience to be defied with impunity. A petition to overturn the smoking ban was on display at the back of the room.

When I called the bar later to ask the owner or a manager about its policy, nobody like that was around. But whoever answered the phone insisted that no smoking is allowed there. Sure thing buddy, and I am the Grand Duchess Anastasia.

Bar owners say, in the many news reports on the cigarette war, that without smoking their business will suffer. But wasn’t that the argument used by sports arenas, movie theaters, restaurants and airlines in years past? In all cases, smokers have eventually, albeit grudgingly, given in.

And besides, there were about 20 in our group that weeknight--roughly half the patrons in the bar. Most of us ordered dinner as well as drinks.

But our big spending got us zero respect in the smoke vs. no-smoke argument.

Moreover, this week, a Los Angeles County Health Department survey put the lie to bar owners’ fears of lost business, with 85% of respondents saying the no-smoking law wouldn’t keep them away from bars. Some 70% said it was “important” or “somewhat important” to maintain smoke-free bars.

Admittedly, however, the link between smoking and drinking in mixed company is a long-standing tradition.

Certainly, that was the way it was when I was growing up in St. Louis, where I developed a fondness for the corner tavern.

I loved those occasions when I was allowed in. Dark and cool. The faint smell emanating from the beer kegs. Harry Caray calling the Cardinal game on the radio. Definitely no ferns or beautiful people.

From the shiny bottles on mirrored shelves behind the bar to the neon signs advertising Falstaff and Pabst Blue Ribbon beer, being in a tavern, I thought then, was the essence of what it meant to be a grown-up.

It had to have been smoky too. But since both of my parents were chain-smokers, I must have been inured to its sting, as smokers are.

No more.

And so mostly, with regret, I avoid places like Ireland’s 32. And when I am lured to one with the promise of good company, or to salute a friend’s good fortune, the smoke drives me away long before the fun ends.

But, I suspect before long it will be smokers who will be driven out the door for a quick cigarette. I bet they’ll come right back in for another beer, too.

My treat.