My housemate and I recently visited a ballyhooed bar in our Payne-Phalen neighborhood. Retrofitted in an old building, Ward 6 is intimate, elegant, yet simple. It seems misplaced in this poor neighborhood … a refugee from Cathedral Hill.
We sat on a stool at the lacquered-wood and glass bar, fronted by a mirrored backdrop and a chalkboard featuring daily food specials. There were multiple taps featuring local craft beers, and nearby, a large crystal ashtray.
OK. There was no ashtray.
But oh! How that setting screamed for one! The sulfurous flick of a match, the serpentine swirl of smoke, the kiss of Turkish tobacco and India Pale Ale. How glorious!
Of course, I had my cigarette outside in the cold, in the parking lot, divorced from the warmth and intimacy. Minnesota smokers are afforded no public accommodation. We are pariahs.
We are shunned and viewed with disdain and exiled to the outdoors. Yet recently the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) bemoaned the fact that despite the best public policy, smoking rates in Minnesota remain stubbornly high. A full fifth of Minnesota adults continue to smoke. Hundreds of thousands of us continue to light up in the shadows.
Now the governor and Legislature are poised to raise the cigarette tax by almost $1 or more a pack, raising an estimated $365 million over two years. For a new stadium? For the schools? For health care costs, including antismoking efforts? (Every time the phone rings, Daddy, a smoking cessation counselor gets her wings!)
Yes, higher tobacco costs would likely prevent some youngsters from starting. (For some teens, it's probably easier to score weed … and maybe soon cheaper … than to buy cigarettes.) And higher costs may prod some adults to quit.
