Cough

In Washington D.C., they are about to enact a smoking ban in bars, and, as usual, all the bar owners and smokers are up in arms, the owners saying it's going to kill their business, the smokers saying it infringes on their rights.

The same cry is heard just about every time a municipality comes to its senses and enacts one of these bans. When I was in Las Vegas last month, they had just passed a ban there too (exempting the damn casinos, of course) and all the alarmists were screeching.

When NYC passed its ban on smoking in bars in 2003, several years after the highly successful ban on smoking in restaurants, I heard all the clamor first hand, with some bars even trying to get their customers to sign petitions calling for a repeal of the ban.

And guess what? The sky didn't fall. Business didn't crumble in these establishments, and smokers were still able to get their fix by simply going outside when they needed to puff. (And these poor monkeys are so addicted they will do that, even when it's freezing cold or pouring rain.)

In fact, business likely increases in some of these places. Non-smokers, who would have been hesitant about going into a smokey bar, are more likely to go to one now. Meanwhile, smokers are still going to go out, they're not going to stay home, they adapt.

More importantly, the rest of us can enjoy ourselves and not go home reeking of smoke - and, of course, not having to breathe that crap.

I remember in the bad old days, pre-ban, after a night out, I would wake up the next day, and, if I hadn't taken a shower before going to bed, or sometimes even if I had, I could still smell it in my hair and on my clothes. Truly disgusting.