Ban puts smokers out in the cold Pub patrons, owners grouse over law

BANGOR – Local bar patrons weathered the beginning of a smoking ban Thursday that left many customers out in the cold.

“It’s hard, but we just bundle up and go outside [to smoke],” said Phyllis Cushing of Bangor, a customer at Judy’s Bar on State Street, which was filled with customers Thursday evening. Bartenders at Judy’s were handing out pretzel sticks and hard candy as alternatives to cigarettes.

The new law, which passed in the state Legislature last summer by a vote of 32-2 in the Senate and 95-45 in the House, bans smoking in bars, taverns and pool halls in Maine. It prohibits smoking in “all enclosed areas of public places and all restrooms made available to the public.”

“I can’t imagine it’ll help [business],” Ken Yehle, a bartender at Geaghan’s Roundhouse, said Thursday. Yehle said the reaction among customers to the smoking ban has been generally negative.

Chris Geaghan, owner of Whig & Courier Pub and Restaurant in downtown Bangor, said it’s possible the smoking ban could actually help his business. Whig & Courier has been nonsmoking since 1999, when the ban on smoking in restaurants was put in effect.

“It shuffles the deck,” he said Thursday. Geaghan said smokers who previously avoided going to the pub because it was nonsmoking might reconsider now that the ban has put bars and restaurants on a level playing field.

Geaghan, however, is not necessarily in favor of the ban.

“I don’t like the law,” Geaghan said. “I love that we’re nonsmoking, but I don’t think the government should dictate that.”

Yehle agreed.

“I don’t think anyone’s too happy about it,” he said.

Most customers, though, seemed to be complying with the new law. At Judy’s Bar and Pat’s Cafe on State Street, smokers huddled outside the entrances before going back inside.

“I see people come in with a cigarette today and then toss them outside when they remember [the law],” Cushing said.

“Right now everyone’s well aware [of the ban], everyone’s being real cooperative. But I’m sure they’ll forget,” Gene Lahaye, a bartender at Pat’s Cafe, said about the smoking customers.

Lahaye, a smoker himself, said the ban has been hard for the customers as well as the bartenders who smoke.

“I had to step outside myself,” he said.