At Mayflower Lounge, Patrons Draw Last Puff

And by snapshots of himself smiling with his signature drinks, he wrote: "But I still serve you cocktails. Your 101 martinis are waiting for you."

Some customers failed to see any levity. A stinger just doesn't taste the same without a smoke, said T.J. Weiss, 52, in a sandpapery voice.

"This is my last stinger here, I can tell you that," she said, pulling her final cigarette from its silver case. "I finally found a piano player who can play 'Lydia the Tattooed Lady,' and now they won't let me smoke here. It's over."

Others betrayed sentimentality, among them several middle-aged men who sadly stowed away the memories of bourbon and cigars.

"It's the end of an institution," said Graham L. Champion, 53, an Alabama businessman, two Dominican-blend cigars poking out of the breast pocket of his houndstooth jacket. "I love the Mayflower. I love this place. What's going to happen to politics without cigars?"

In a virile knot of fine suits and broad shoulders, deep in clouds of Cohiba smoke, David H. Bass, 40, suggested it would have been fairer to institute smoking bans in each state "in the order of their admission to the union."

That would have made the District of Columbia dead last.

Many younger customers, those who order Sam's fruitinis and consider themselves occasional bar smokers, were less upset about smokers' rights and professed themselves to be largely indifferent to a smoking ban. Some were even a little embarrassed to be caught in the act.

"Oh my gawd. No one can know I smoke," said a twenty-something woman, holding champagne with a strawberry perched on the rim of the flute in one hand, a cigarette in the other. "I work on ballot measures that ban smoking."

On Thursday, a new era made its debut with a subtle change of decor. Sam replaced the bar's humidor with a three-step wooden riser he built to better display his vodka collection.

"This is muuuuch better," said the nonsmoking bartender, who tests his lungs annually. Customer complaints about the smoke were increasing, he said.

"Even at lunch it was smoky," said Chris Madoo, director of marketing at the hotel. That's why they decided to jump ahead of the District's January start date for the ban. "You don't always have to wait for a deadline to do the right thing," he said.