Perhaps you've heard: A bill has been introduced to modify the state's smoking ban. It's a hugely divisive issue; some really want the ban maintained, while others really, really want it maintained. I think they can probably find some common ground.
But there are also bar owners who'd probably like to open a room where you can pound a nail or fire up a cigar -- and people would patronize them, too. You'll recall a story from a few years ago: A bar decided it would put on a play, and the play consisted of "Oscar Wilde's 'Oh, Everyone Smoking, How Grand'" or something equally specious. It was a ruse to get around the laws, of course. A court later issued a ruling that said, in essence, "Dude. C'mon, no." It wasn't really a play. Not even if everyone walked around saying "Forsooth, by my bodkin the pulltabs hath struck me low with woe" or other scraps of pseudo-Shakespeare.
If someone wrote a play about the court case, though, and it were performed at the Guthrie, that would be different. If people at Al's Hilltop Tavern took turns reading the script while smoking, that would not be a performance. Because we know what they're really up to.
It's difficult to remember the days when people smoked in restaurants, but yes, children, they did. When you walked into a restaurant you smelled Winstons fried in onions. It was normal. The "Non-Smoking" section was usually two wobbly tables with no barrier between their magic smoke-free area and the guys a few tables over pounding so many Marlboros you could scoop the blue haze into balls and roll them down the aisles. No one wants to go back to this. Most people who go to bars probably don't miss smelling like Walter Winchell's undershirt when they get home. Still, you'd think there would be room for choice: If the owner has a separate room with an air lock and installs enough atmospheric scrubbers to make a frathouse on pledge week smell like a baby's breath, what's the problem?
This probably won't go anywhere. Still, I hope they spend a few hours debating the matter, so there's no time to discuss another idea percolating in state legislatures elsewhere -- distracted walking. Yes, really. We all know the dangers of texting while driving. We've always known the dangers, ever since a first horse-drawn carriage went off a bridge in 1862 because the driver was tapping out a message on a telegraph key. (In those days you had to be attached to the network with stout cables, which limited your roaming area.) But there have been stories of people who were struck crossing the street because they were texting or listening to an iPod, so lawmakers in two states -- not "crazy" and "delusional," but Arkansas and New York -- are considering legislation to ban the use of headphones just about everywhere in public.
I quote: "The proposal in Arkansas would ban pedestrians from wearing headphones in both ears while on, parallel or adjacent to a street, road, intersection or highway." Parallel or adjacent to a street, aka "everywhere you might walk." The measure, however, "would allow pedestrians to wear headphones in one ear."
We get one ear! How generous. Enjoy that "Ode to Half-Hearted Emotion" in Beethoven's 4 1/2th Symphony. It's a law guaranteed to be ignored by everyone, enforced at random and useless, as well. Outside Star Tribune World HQ is something you might as well call Scofflaw Lane because folks, myself included, regularly cut across the middle of the street to the parking lot. Most traffic goes one way, except for a bus lane. A few times I've almost stepped in front of a bus and ended up as grille jelly, which makes me feel bad since that would ruin the driver's day. The paperwork alone -- ach, a nightmare.
But here's the thing: I'm rarely wearing headphones. Somehow I can pass the half-block 'twixt car and door without having popular music blared directly into my auditory canals. And I still almost get creamed once a month.
In case you're wondering why no local legislators were contacted to see if they're considering this, I don't want to give them any ideas. The next step would be doing something about those people who stand outside buildings, lost in thought. That's right, distracted smoking. A hazard we have ignored far too long.
jlileks@startribune.com • 612-673-7858 More daily at www.startribune.com/popcrush.
