(If smoking bans were good for business, would owners take such elaborate measured to get around them?)

Minnesota bar patrons are lighting up once again in the tavern, in the name of theater. It’s been months since smokers could puff away inside the bars, but a lawyer says a lit cigarette is nothing more than a prop as thespians act in “The Tobacco Monologues.”

Mark Benjamin was dressed in full renaissance garb as he inhaled his Marlboro. “Some of my friends in the VFW’s and legions were suffering as a result of the smoking ban. I thought I would research the law to determine if there was a way I could help my friends,” Benjamin explained. “I found the exception. The way it was written. I realized if we can have Shakespeare in the park, we can have Shakespeare in the bar. It was written just that way, there was no definition of theatrical productions,” the criminal defense lawyer by traded, added.

Staff members at Barnacles Resort on the north shore of Mille Lacs passed out play bills for good measure Saturday night. A sign on the door warned bar customers that “actors would be smoking.”

Jeanne Weigum, Executive Director of the Association for Nonsmokers told the Star Tribune, “This is pretty lame. If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it’s a duck. And if it looks like a bar, it’s a bar.”

Benjamin says at least six bars in the state “put on plays” Saturday night. He hopes more bar owners will stand up and take advantage of the theatrical production exception. The State Attorney General’s office is looking into the loophole.

Source: kare11.com. Link

This entry was posted on Saturday, February 16th, 2008 at 10:39 am and is filed under Bars/Taverns, North America. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.