The Pipe Bit: After the Dance

By Chris Rentner

            In college—and, to correct the Wikipedia entry for this blog,  I actually went to UW-Whitewater—on some weekends, I would go to a bar called T&T’s.  I would plop down on a stool, slap a fresh pack of Alpine cigarettes (college, remember) on the bar and order some noxious concoction (college).  As I drank, I smoked.  The two were inseparable—the smoke complimented the liquor and beer.  So it is still for a lot of Wisconsinites…but only for a while longer.

            This week the Wisconsin legislature will pass a smoking ban on almost all workplaces, including bars.  And Governor Doyle will sign it.  Since I try to avoid politics in this blog, I will only say this about the ban directly:  today, with no state law, many non-smoking bars (grimaces) seem to be flourishing, as are bars that “allow” smoking.  This situation was not due to legislation but to initiative by business owners.  So a ban isn’t need, or wanted, I daresay, by the people who in large part actually make this country succeed (even in a harsh recession).

            Uhle’s and other smokeshops, and cigar bars, in Wisconsin will not be affected by the ban, due to start, as of this writing, July 5 of 2010.  So I can still come to work for Big Tobacco and light up, as I have at work for almost fifteen years.  I don’t have to go outside for a quick smoke break, or go to lunch at a restaurant that allows smoking.  I can smoke while I work, which is quickly becoming  a kind of honor…in another life, perhaps, I would’ve ended up working for Corporate America, here in downtown Milwaukee, and would  have had to duck into Uhle’s for a quick smoke.  There, this alternate me would commiserate about how hard it was to be a smoker.  And I would’ve been glad there was still a refuge, a safe place, that encouraged freedom.

            As the night wore on at T&T’s, some of my fellow students would try to “dance,” meaning left-right-left-right, more swaying than footwork.  Then we’d go home—often alone, sometimes not—after bar time.

            As the smoking ban looms, and we smokers—honest, moral, taxpaying citizens, among many other attributes—continue to be the object of harsh vitriol, it’s time to pull up a chair and think.  It’s time to figure out what to do after the dance.