What a Drag, Smokers Say

In the hours before they took away the ashtrays, if there could have been one bar in Los Angeles for a good old American smoker’s last stand, Molly Malones would be it.

Throughout this dim, windowless Irish drinker’s haven on Fairfax Avenue, tobacco has been king for as long as anyone can remember. It’s a place where everyone is holding a cigarette in the painted portraits of regular patrons hanging on the walls--a bar where your clothes, your hands, even the drinks themselves seem to reek of smoker’s after-breath.

So when regulars talked about the statewide ban on bar smoking that takes effect today, they got a fidgety, don’t-know-what-to-do-with-my-hands thing going.

They reached for their cigarettes.

“My customers have already told me, ‘I’m not going to stop smoking,’ and I believe them,” said bartender Jimmy Georgiades, twirling a swizzle stick in his mouth.

“The Legislature passed this law, but they’re not the ones who are going to have to enforce it. It’s me. When people can’t smoke, it’s the bartender’s fault. I’m on the front lines for confrontation.”

As California readied to take its much-discussed step to become the first state in the nation with smoke-free bars and casinos, taverns on every corner seemed to be taking a final collective drag to ponder the angles.

Some, like the Formosa Cafe in West Hollywood, were busy adding an outdoor patio and deck for smokers. Others were looking for loopholes, talking to attorneys, contemplating turning themselves into a private club with fees to beat the law and keep on puffing.

The ban, which is the last piece of the state’s 1995 workplace smoking law to take effect, won’t be enforced until Friday, state Department of Health Services officials said. But many bars were already accepting the inevitable.

Bartenders have spent hours role-playing with tavern owners, figuring out just the right approach to tell people that it’s now against the law to light up.

Owners were busy Wednesday plotting how they were going to get patrons to snuff out their cigarettes come midnight, noting that there would still be a full two hours of drinking time left.

Bars, they knew, aren’t like the other workplaces--office buildings, movie theaters, restaurants--where California has already outlawed smoking. They worried that the introduction of alcohol will make tavern smokers less reasonable. For many patrons, they reasoned, smoking is not a choice, but an addiction. They also know that bars are often seen as the last bastion of social lawlessness, places where anything goes, where smoking a cigarette with your spirit-of-choice has long gone together like Waylon and Willie.

“We’ll have signs posted and will let our security staff let people know that it’s unacceptable,” Sal Jenco, owner of the trendy Viper Room in Hollywood, said of his New Year’s Eve plans. “But we won’t be throwing people out who insist on continuing to smoke.

“As kindly as we can, we’ll do what it takes to carry out this ridiculous law, this return to Prohibition.”

At Morton’s bar and restaurant in Beverly Hills, which caters to cigar aficionados and even features a private humidor, regulars wanted to go out in style with a self-termed “smoke-out,” planning to puff right up to the midnight deadline--and perhaps beyond.

“We were always a place where guys could come in for a big slab of beef and then hit the bar for a cigar and a single-malt scotch--but now that will change,” said restaurant general manager Don Stonebraker.

“It’s going to be a den of iniquity here on the last night, along with some sad faces. We’re all afraid our smoking regulars will drift away. They’ve been banished from the dining room into the bar, and that was acceptable. Now they feel like they’re getting kicked out the door.”

Added Morton’s bartender Michael Kelly: “There are some really special people who come in here, who happen to be smokers, that I probably won’t see much of anymore.”

Experts reject such a dark vision.

“Remember when they banned smoking in airplanes and all the hewing and crying and moaning and groaning that followed?” asked Alan Henderson, president of the American Cancer Society’s California division. “Now people don’t even think about it anymore.”

Health officials are armed with studies that show people dislike public smoking and that bars that have banned the habit have done just as well without it, thank you.

One such study found that 76% of Californians who frequent bars are bothered by secondhand smoke. Another, by the University of California, concluded that smoking bans in five cities and two counties did not hurt bar or restaurant sales.

Which is exactly why bar owners should consider the ban an opportunity, said Lou Moench, the proprietor of Father’s Office in Santa Monica, who has forbidden smoking in his pub for six years.

“There’s a big pool of nonsmokers out there who would like to go into bars but don’t,” said Moench, an elegant man with wavy gray hair and round spectacles.

Moench’s epiphany came at the end of 1990 while driving in Santa Monica, when he saw a billboard tallying the year’s number of deaths worldwide due to secondhand smoke.

Moench said he felt a duty to protect his staff, and declared his little tavern, which boasts 31 types of microbrewed beers on tap, a nonsmoking establishment.

While statewide per capita consumption of alcohol dipped 30% over the last decade, sales at Father’s Office rose 400%, he said.

In Los Angeles gambling halls, where nearly every poker face has a cigarette dangling from its lips, players and casino managers consider the law a real loser.

At the cavernous Commerce Club, players who want to puff will have to either step outside or navigate the casino’s metallic palm trees and gold statues to reach one of three designated smoking rooms, which will have no card-playing, no food and no employees.

“A lot of people don’t like it,” said James Rodriguez, 45, sitting in one such room, a window-tinted chamber just a few feet from the pai gow tables. “They’ve started calling this place ‘the gas chamber.’ ”

But for Rodriguez, who said the casino is the only place he smokes, the question of how to balance his Marlboros and his poker chips is an easy one. “If I’m in the middle of a game and I want a cigarette, I’m going to leave the game,” he said.

That’s what worries casino managers such as John Sutton of the newly reopened Crystal Park Hotel and Casino in Compton. That’s why he has set aside two outdoor areas with chairs and cocktail tables so smokers won’t have to leave.

Said Sutton: “We may destroy games because too many people get up to smoke at the same time.”

At Star’s Lounge in Chatsworth, the New Year’s Eve plan was in effect hours before opening: No ashtrays would be set out on tables--a move to discourage smoking--but employees would pass them out to individual patrons who lit up.

“What it’s going to do, it’s going to make us deal with a lot of irritable people,” said Glenn Strandley, a 15-year bartender who manages Star’s.

In Boyle Heights, patrons felt like they were losing their right to a guaranteed American pastime.

At a downscale cantina named Mario’s Place, 39-year-old Javier Hernandez shared a pack of smokes with his construction crew workmate Fernando Gomez.

Both men said they considered the bar a type of refuge--from work and home--where they could drink, smoke and talk at ease. The prospect of losing part of this liberty angered them.

“I can’t smoke at home because of the kids, of the wife,” said Hernandez, growing increasingly agitated. “Where am I supposed to go? The street?

“If people don’t like smoke, why do they come here? It’s a center of vice.”

Added Gomez: “I come here to relax. But I won’t come anymore if there’s no freedom.”

Back at Molly Malones, the state-approved warning signs were already up, the ones announcing “No Smoking Allowed.”

But one regular weighed in with his opinion, scrawling the international circle and slash on a poster along with one desperate word of protest:

“Not.”

Times staff writers Jeff Leeds and Jose Cardenas and correspondent Julia Scheeres contributed to this story.

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The New Law: Where There’s No Smoke

California’s campaign against tobacco use expands today when smoking becomes illegal in most of the state’s 35,000 bars, as well as in card rooms and casinos. Some facts:

Who’s included: The prohibition applies to almost all enclosed workplaces that have employees other than the owner.

History: The Legislature passed the smoking ban in 1994. Citing dangers from second-hand smoke, supporters, including the California Labor Federation, backed the legislation as a worker safety measure.

Starting in 1995, the prohibition applied to offices, restaurants and most other enclosed places of business. It was extended to bars and casinos after state officials failed to determine safe levels of exposure to tobacco smoke.

Penalties: After initial confusion, the state Department of Health Services has concluded that patrons who ignore the law, as well as business owners who allow smoking in their establishments, could be subject to fines of $100 for a first violation and $200 for a second. A third violation could result in a $500 fine, plus action against the employer by state labor officials.

State and local health officials say few fines have been issued during the three years the law has been in effect. They plan to implement this latest phase of the indoor smoking ban by educating bar owners and patrons about its health benefits.

Exceptions: The smoking ban does not extend to bars and casinos on Indian land, bars that are owner-operated and have no employees, tobacco retailers and establishments that are not enclosed by four walls and a ceiling.