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All the world's a stage at some of Minnesota's bars. A new state ban on smoking in restaurants and other nightspots contains an exception for performers in theatrical productions. So some bars are getting around the ban by printing up playbills, encouraging customers to come in costume, and pronouncing them "actors."
The customers are playing right along, merrily puffing away — and sometimes speaking in funny accents and doing a little improvisation, too.
The state Health Department is threatening to bring the curtain down on these sham productions. But for now, it's on with the show.
At The Rock, a hard-rock and heavy-metal bar in suburban St. Paul, the "actors" during "theater night" do little more than sit around, drink, smoke and listen to the earsplitting music.
"They're playing themselves before Oct. 1. You know, before there was a smoking ban," owner Brian Bauman explained. Shaping the words in the air with his hands, like a producer envisioning the marquee, he said: "We call the production, `Before the Ban!'"
The smoking ban, passed by the Legislature last year, allows actors to light up in character during theatrical performances as long as patrons are notified in advance.
About 30 bars in Minnesota have been exploiting the loophole by staging the faux theater productions and pronouncing cigarettes props, according to an anti-smoking group.
"It's too bad they didn't put as much effort into protecting their employees from smoking," grumbled Jeanne Weigum, executive director of the Association for Nonsmokers.
The Health Department this week vowed to begin cracking down on theater nights with fines of as much as $10,000.
"The law was enacted to protect Minnesotans from the serious health effects of secondhand smoke," Minnesota Health Commissioner Sanne Magnan said. "It is time for the curtain to fall on these theatrics."
At The Rock earlier this week, a black stage curtain covered part of the entrance, and a sign next to it with an arrow read, "Stage Entrance." Along the opposite wall, below a sign saying "Props Dept.," was a stack of the only props needed: black ashtrays.
At the door was a printed playbill for that night's program, with a list of names of the people portraying bartenders and security guards. Playing the owner: "Brian."
Courtney Conk paid $1 for a button that said "Act Now" and pinned it to her shirt. That made her an actor for the night, entitling her to smoke. She turned in an understated, minimalist performance, sitting with cigarette in hand and talking to a bass player with the band.
"I thought it was funny that they found a loophole," Conk said. "I'm more of an activist-actor tonight, you could say. I think it's kind of this way of saying what we think about the ban."
While The Rock asks nothing of its actors by way of creativity, a few other bars have been a little more theatrical.
At Barnacles Resort and Campground along Lake Mille Lacs, a "traveling tobacco troupe" dressed in medieval costume on the first theater night. Mark Benjamin, a lawyer who pushed bars to exploit the loophole, wore tights, a feathered cap and black boots.
"Hey, I'm a child of the '60s. I can do a little improv," he said. His improv amounted to speaking in medieval character to other patrons.
In Hill City, Mike's Uptown owner Lisa Anderson has been offering theater night once a week. The bar had a Mardi Gras theme last Saturday, attracting about 30 patrons, most of them in costume.
"I was dressed in a Victorian dress with the old fluffy thing that weighs 500 pounds," she said. "We had some fairies and some pirates and a group of girls — I'm not sure what they were, but they had big boas and flashy makeup."
Though there were no skits, Anderson said some people "start talking with different accents." She added: "It's turned into the funnest thing I can imagine."
One bar on northern Minnesota's Iron Range, the Queen City Sports Place, calls its nightly smokefest "The Tobacco Monologues."
Proving anew there's no business like show business, Anderson said her theater-night receipts have averaged $2,000 — up from $500 right after the ban kicked in. Similarly, Bauman said revenue at The Rock dropped off 30 percent after the ban took effect, then shot back up to normal once the bar began allowing smoking again.
He and other bar owners said they plan to continue putting on theater nights.
"There's no question we were struggling," he said. "And we are extremely nervous that this is going to go away, and we will be back to the way it was."
© 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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{"commentId":1548351,"authorDomain":"hemphill"}
Nice to see that they found a way to get around the ditzy lawmakers.
{"commentId":1548351,"threadId":"230495","contentId":"1348269","authorDomain":"hemphill"}
- 1 vote
#1 - Thu Mar 6, 2008 4:13 PM EST{"commentId":1549464,"authorDomain":"Prilj"}
Yeah, really. I mean, smoking is disgusting and all, but I'm glad to see these people have a loophole to exploit, if only temporarily. :)
{"commentId":1549464,"threadId":"230495","contentId":"1348269","authorDomain":"Prilj"}
- 1 vote
{"commentId":1551979,"authorDomain":"maryj0anna"}
I think its great they found a way to get around it all. If people don't like the smoke stay out of the bars.
{"commentId":1551979,"threadId":"230495","contentId":"1348269","authorDomain":"maryj0anna"}
#2 - Fri Mar 7, 2008 1:45 PM EST{"commentId":1552491,"authorDomain":"Prilj"}
If people don't like the smoke stay out of the bars.
Well, to be fair, people go to bars to drink, not to take in second hand smoke. :) I mean, when a non-smoking alcoholic dies of lung cancer and NOT liver failure, you know something is wrong. :)
{"commentId":1552491,"threadId":"230495","contentId":"1348269","authorDomain":"Prilj"}
- 1 vote
{"commentId":1555004,"authorDomain":"ryan-salter"}
What about the people who work at the bars and are consistently poisoned?
For the general patron, is it really that unreasonable to ask to not be denied to an establishment out of a wish to not get lung cancer? (of course..they are going to inject another poison)
""There's no question we were struggling," he said. "And we are extremely nervous that this is going to go away, and we will be back to the way it was."
Urg. We've had smoking bans rolling across our province for the past 10 years. Every time, bar owners make doom like statements of how they're going to go out of business. And every time, it never happens.
{"commentId":1555004,"threadId":"230495","contentId":"1348269","authorDomain":"ryan-salter"}
{"commentId":1555048,"authorDomain":"hemphill"}
And sometimes they do go out of business. In this case you have a few bars that were floundering, found a loophole that got their business back, and are now doing ok again. For these guys, the ban means they go out of business. How should it be done so that there can be a bar that allows smoking?
{"commentId":1555048,"threadId":"230495","contentId":"1348269","authorDomain":"hemphill"}
- 1 vote
{"commentId":1555414,"authorDomain":"ryan-salter"}
You have a good point, I'm not sure there really is a way, without defeating the whole purpose of a 'ban'. A few bars going out of business is well worth the benefits of indoor smoking bans. I guess I just really don't have much sympathy for smokers. It's such a simple addiction, and ends up costing our system a ton of money (well, I guess not for you guys, but redirects medical resources away from treating people who didn't inflict massive purposeful harm on themselves)
{"commentId":1555414,"threadId":"230495","contentId":"1348269","authorDomain":"ryan-salter"}
- 1 vote
{"commentId":1555584,"authorDomain":"hemphill"}
So for you anyway, you just think smoking should be outlawed across the board? How do you reconcile that with drinking alcohol being legal?
{"commentId":1555584,"threadId":"230495","contentId":"1348269","authorDomain":"hemphill"}
{"commentId":1557937,"authorDomain":"ryan-salter"}
In public places (as it is where I live..) yes.
As to alcohol being legal, I have a problem with that as well. Not so much as a desire to outlaw things which are bad for people, but from the massive hipocracy of which drugs are legal and which aren't. As the easiest example, marijuana. It's basically impossible to overdose and kill yourself with it, while the over dose ratio to standard dose of alcohol is around the 3 to 4 times. Compare that to LSD, which has an overdose ratio around 10,000, and it just stops making sense (well, the LSD example it does, LSD activates your neo-frontal cortex, alcohol de-activates it, wouldn't want people starting to think for themselves...)
As well, alcohol use results in a mass of societal damage; the amount of crime committed while intoxicated, vandalism, health care costs, ill-advised phone calls, etc.
Second hand smoke poisons others, others who have enough sense to not actively poison themselves. How do you justify it being OK to idly poison passer-bys ?(this is also coming from the sort of smoking ban we have here, no public buildings, and not within 9 meters of any public buildings entrance)
{"commentId":1557937,"threadId":"230495","contentId":"1348269","authorDomain":"ryan-salter"}
- 1 vote
{"commentId":1558305,"authorDomain":"hemphill"}
Sounds like you would vote for making everything illegal.
Second hand smoke still doesn't have valid science as to a negative affect, I think we should wait for some real science and not jump on a bandwagon. And even then I have to wonder, we still allow bars, perfume is still legal, we let people drive cars that poison people. It seems like folks are picking smoking as the big bad in the world and ignoring the rest. If they want to save lives, they could stop war, that'd save a lot more than getting rid of smoking would.
For bars like this they clearly want to be allowed to smoke there. Why do the non-smokers feel such an urge to tell them how to live? Where do they get the right to tell other people what is ok to do in their lives?
{"commentId":1558305,"threadId":"230495","contentId":"1348269","authorDomain":"hemphill"}
{"commentId":1560738,"authorDomain":"h8tank-16502"}
How can you punish someone for being a smoker? I agree with hemphill, there's a helluva lot more pollutants in the air, the water, even the food you eat, that are more likely to cause cancer or other health related problems. I've heard the odds of someone (a non-smoker) getting cancer from second hand smoke are about as likely as getting hit by lightning.
{"commentId":1560738,"threadId":"230495","contentId":"1348269","authorDomain":"h8tank-16502"}
#3 - Mon Mar 10, 2008 9:42 AM EDT{"commentId":1561206,"authorDomain":"ryan-salter"}
Sounds like you would vote for making everything illegal. Actually more for making everything legal. I was just pointing out what I view as radical inconsistencies in what is legal and what isn't.
To the valid science thing, I'm not sure? I read some pretty convincing science showing that 2nd hand smoke was pretty bad (I think they were talking for example of waiters in bars who were constantly exposed). I'm not a medical scientist, so I can't really judge what is 'valid' science or not. I know enough in my field (psych) that when I carefully read papers, half of them are b.s. And a guy was smoking next to my girlfriend and I the other day while we were waiting for a bus, and she her eyes started going kind of red. That pisses me off. Back when I was a kid, and had pretty bad asthma, I literally couldn't go into stores when there were lots of smokers in them. I'd have to wait outside while my parents went in. That wasn't fun. Smoking ban came into effect, and that never happened, which was nice. To put it simply.
It's true about picking smoking to rag on, but it's something we can control. The anti-smoking campaigns here have been extremely effective, teen smoking rates are down about 45%, and we're seeing drops in lung cancer rates.
Where do they get the right to tell other people what is ok to do in their lives? It's not an issue of telling them what to do with their lives. I agree, people can live how they want. Where we draw the line is when how you live your life endangers others. To go further into that, I think it is sometimes valid to tell people how to live their lives when it benefits the state, especially in regards to health care costs. Do you agree with the laws enforcing seat belt usage? Canada is more collectivist in that sense, our laws tend to lean towards the good of the state/people before the person.
How can you punish someone for being a smoker? We're not. We're stopping them from harming others, or at the least, annoying others with bad smelling irritating smoke. Smokers can poison themselves all they want, but it doesn't give them the right to do the same to others. Those odds, in what relation? The smoking bylaws were first formulated specifically for people who work in restaurants being constantly exposed to second hand smoke. (of course, theres the argument then of they can find another job, but what if they can't, etc.)
*haha. sorry for the long post. Lots to say*
{"commentId":1561206,"threadId":"230495","contentId":"1348269","authorDomain":"ryan-salter"}
{"commentId":1561539,"authorDomain":"hemphill"}
For the record I am against seat belt laws, and I wear one every time I get in the car.
The benefiting the state argument has some repercussions that aren't overly evident. If we push that line, then fast food has to go away. TV dinners have to go away. Preprocessed food has to go away.
If you are trying to stop smokers from annoying people, I assume you are also pushing to outlaw aftershave and perfume.
For the workers job, they know what the job is coming into it. If they are not comfortable with those conditions then they really should work elsewhere. If they can't find any other work then I really have no sympathy there. There is no right to have the job you want.
{"commentId":1561539,"threadId":"230495","contentId":"1348269","authorDomain":"hemphill"}
{"commentId":1690952,"authorDomain":"nelson031588"}
first of all any person that says there is no proof that proves second hand smoking kills has no idea what he is taking about. You have not done your research. I am not going to have my family poisoned because some person what's to poison himself. Go do it in your own house and out of my face.
{"commentId":1690952,"threadId":"230495","contentId":"1348269","authorDomain":"nelson031588"}
#4 - Mon Apr 14, 2008 4:13 PM EDT{"commentId":2036440,"authorDomain":"malcantro"}
The smoking ban here is a municipal law not a state law, so the bars on the edge of town past the city limits can do as they please, and surprise surprise all such bars that can have smoking do have smoking. All the people that pushed for the ban in town said that the bars would probably get more business because the non-smokers would come in more often, but looky looky bar business is down all over the city. Truth is the majority of the non smokers who voted for the ban never had any intentions of frequenting the new ly smoke free establishments. If we had a similar loophole every bar in this town would be puffing away again, just like the good ole days.
{"commentId":2036440,"threadId":"230495","contentId":"1348269","authorDomain":"malcantro"}
- 1 vote
#5 - Tue Jun 24, 2008 6:55 AM EDT{"commentId":10405276,"authorDomain":"breelaboy"}
{"commentId":10430564,"authorDomain":"brianalampton"}
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