Bars Use Smoke and Mirrors to Flout Ban

All good bars have a touch of theatre: like the stage they use lighting and scenery to create a mood. But in Minnesota they have taken the connection a step further.

More than 100 bars across the state have started holding "theatre nights" in which patrons are encouraged to dress up in period costume and project their voices, playbills are pinned on the walls, and bar paraphernalia makes up the props.

The bars are seeking to bypass a smoking ban introduced last October by exploiting a loophole that allows cigarettes to be puffed in theatrical productions.

What began as an idea by a Minnesota lawyer, Mark Benjamin, to get round what he saw as an unjustified prohibition has snowballed into a state-wide protest. Bars have taken to calling their theatre nights "Before the Ban", which allows them to claim that their customers are in character playing themselves before the October injunction came down.

One bar in the north of the state, the Queen City Sports Place, calls its night The Tobacco Monologues. Black cloth is draped over entrances, with notices saying "Stage Entrance". And ashtrays are piled up under the label "Props".

Other bars hand out badges to anyone who donates a dollar saying "Act Now!"

The state authorities are not amused. The health department, responsible for the smoking ban, has been advised that the theatre nights break the new law, and has threatened to hit participating bars with fines of up to $10,000 (£4,800) as well as remove their licenses.

Health commissioner Sanne Magnan told the Post-Bulletin in Rochester, Minnesota, that she expected bars to comply. "That's the spirit of Minnesota. We want to do the right thing when the public is overwhelmingly in support of something."

Benjamin has issued a challenge to the state authorities to hold a live, unscripted television debate on whether or not his wheeze is legal. "We will hash this out once and for all," he said.