Smoking bans could snuff out small bars, eateries

• Article
• Comments ()
• Click-2-Listen
• Videos

By

Anyone interested in the proposed smoking bans and initiatives clouding D.C. skies ought to click on www.bantheban.org, and take another puffing perspective.

This spunky site was started primarily by Zoe Mitchell, a single 20-something public advocate who counts among her memberships a group known as "Washington Interns Gone Bad."

Ms. Mitchell, who said she always wanted to move to the District from her home in Calvert County, Maryland, is one of the new Washingtonians who have converged on the hot U Street corridor.

After this workaholic spends her days "working on the issues I cared about," she likes to kick back and light up at her neighborhood watering hole, the Kingpin, at 9th and U streets NW.

But Ms. Mitchell is worried that such places will have to close doors if the nation's capital adopts a smoking ban similar to the one that went into effect in nearby Gaithersburg yesterday.

So am I.

Alvin and Adrienne Carter, owners of the popular Hitching Post on Upshur Street NW, face a similar fate. Their small soul-food restaurant and bar will not survive if they lose their regular clientele -- the majority of whom are smokers.

One Rockville restaurant, Dietle's Tavern, contends it has closed because Montgomery County's smoking ban caused them to lose substantial business.

I am not a smoker. Because several of my close friends are, we take turns sitting in the smoking or nonsmoking section of restaurants. But in a bar, I just expect a smoke-filled, juke-joint atmosphere.