U.S.

New Orleans Bars Issue Last Call for Smoking

By 
Ben Sherman, pouring beer, urged his customers at the Kingpin to “go out in a blaze of glory” before a ban on smoking in New Orleans bars went into effect early Wednesday.William Widmer for The New York Times 
NEW ORLEANS — No one goes to a bar here, particularly one that advertises its hours as “2 p.m. till,” and expects precision about the time of day. But it was right on the stroke of midnight that Frankie Mazzanti, 56, one of the owners of the low-ceilinged neighborhood joint called 45 Tchoup, went along the bar picking up ashtrays and tossing them in a plastic bag.
“All right guys, put ’em out,” he said. “Sorry, it’s over.”
Just after midnight, it became illegal to smoke in bars in New Orleans. Last call for cigarettes went out across the city: at the hazy Bud Rip’s bar in the Bywater; among the cigar-smoking crowd in the leopard print chairs at the French 75 bar in the French Quarter; at the Kingpin, where the bartenders handed out Nicorette gum; and at 45 Tchoup, where smoke had settled in so heavily that it began to form something like an Alpine cloud bank.
“This is one of the smokiest bars in town,” said Steve Zweibaum, 57, the owner of a jazz venue nearby who, while smoking a cigarette, spoke of how he had quit smoking long ago. “I know a bunch of people who don’t come in here because of the smoke,” he said, listing names. “Maybe they’ll come back.”
Customers at the Kingpin, a New Orleans bar that invited patrons to participate in smoking-related contests before a ban went into effect. William Widmer for The New York Times 
New Orleans is late to banning smoking in bars, but it is not the last holdout in the United States.
Las Vegas, Philadelphia and several other large cities have not totally banned smoking in bars, according to a count kept by the American Nonsmokers’ Rights Foundation. But New Orleans, home of bars that never close and beers ordered to go, was one of those places where people assumed a smoking ban would never fly.
Still, a gradual move away from smoking had already begun. Louisiana state law had banned smoking in restaurants, and quite a few bars and clubs here had voluntarily forbidden smoking, including the well-known Maple Leaf Bar, which, fittingly, stopped allowing smoking on Ash Wednesday this year.
But in late fall, LaToya Cantrell, a City Council member, introduced a concrete proposal against smoking. After multiple revisions, the council unanimously approved a smoking ban ordinance several months later, but not before heated discussion over public health and lost revenues, and what all this meant for the identity of New Orleans.
Was this a case of regulating the joie de vivre out of a city where permissiveness is a founding principle, turning New Orleans into Orlando, or, heaven forbid, Atlanta? Actually, neither Orlando nor Atlanta has a total ban on smoking in bars.
Frankie Mazzanti put away the ashtrays at 45 Tchoup just after midnight.William Widmer for The New York Times 
“It’s that overall bohemian kind of free spirit that we have in New Orleans that makes it so unique, and it’s why people love it,” said Shelly Waguespack, the owner of Pat O’Briens, a French Quarter staple and one of a group of businesses joining the city’s sole casino, Harrah’s, in suing over the ban.
Or were business interests wielding some vague romantic principle in an attempt to derail a policy meant to protect their workers?
“It’s exploiting people who have the least access to health care,” said Bethany Bultman, the president of the New Orleans Musicians’ Clinic and Assistance Foundation, which provides health services to performers in the city.
The let-the-market-decide arguments falter, Ms. Bultman said, once you consider that this is a town of musicians living from paycheck to paycheck, and that they are not in a position to turn down a job over a venue’s smoking policy.
“I never liked to play smoky clubs,” said Raymond Williams, who plays trumpet for the Hot 8 Brass Band. “But when I was young, I never really thought about the health impacts.”
Ben Sherman, co-owner of the Kingpin, smoking a cigar before the ban went into effect.William Widmer for The New York Times 
That this is a service industry city cuts both ways. There are musicians like Mr. Williams, as well as waiters and bartenders and others, who have long looked forward to the day when they would not have to spend their work hours inhaling smoke. But there are also those who finish their shifts at 2 a.m. and head straight for the local dive to drink, smoke and forget the day.
“Think about all the chefs getting off work and going to bars like the Chart Room,” said Chris Hannah, a bartender at French 75 and a nonsmoker, referring to a late-night bar in the French Quarter. “The Chart Room without smoking, that’s pathetic.”
Still, while some are celebrating the ban and others are suing over it, most are taking it with little more than a resigned shrug. At 45 Tchoup, Mr. Mazzanti spoke of finally giving the ceiling a new paint job. Marcus Brown, a 32-year-old sculptor, criticized the City Council for infringing on the city’s freedom, but concluded that he would keep coming here anyway.
“My wife will come here now, too, probably,” he lamented.
As the night ended, Mr. Mazzanti gave the plastic bag full of ashtrays to Willie Brown, 59, a regular. He planned to send the ashtrays to a friend who owns a cafe in a little town in Mississippi.
“It’s still legal out there,” he said, as the haze began to dissipate.