By Petula Dvorak
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, June 3, 2006
The lounge is paneled in dark mahogany, the ice clinks in 22-year-old scotch.
It's a quintessential Washington set piece, with power brokers shooting their cuffs and ladies in dark lipstick drinking stingers.
And overnight last week, the atmosphere in the clubby Town and Country Lounge, tucked inside the Mayflower Hotel on Connecticut Avenue NW, changed with the placement of a tiny sign next to each dish of premium nuts bearing the news in elegant script: "As of Thursday June 1st, Town & Country will become a non-smoking lounge."
On Wednesday, the last day smoking was allowed in the lounge, the sense of fin de siecle was as thick as the smoke swirling around the room. Lobbyists, lawyers, consultants and other indomitable Washington types were discovering their posh lair would be one of the first in the nation's capital to adopt the city's smoking ban -- seven whole months before it takes effect.
No Marlboro. No menthol. No cigar.
The next night, those who swaggered into the lounge for their vodka martinis and Cohibas were reduced to whining when hit with the new rules.
"I can't believe this. I'm crushed," lamented Tom Knudsen, 55, as he twisted the no-smoking sign into mangled pieces. "This is the one place I do this."
The District follows Montgomery, Prince George's and Talbot counties in Maryland, which banned smoking in most restaurants and bars.
For about 300 regulars, news of the coming of the end arrived in an e-mail from bartender Sambonn Lek, known as Sam, who, in his crisp white dinner jacket, has been mixing drinks for 30 years.
"No More," he wrote below a photograph of a man whose head was enveloped in a shroud of cigar smoke.
"No More," by a picture of a blonde with blue eye shadow holding a cigarette daintily between her forefingers.
"No More," beside a photo of two ashtrays overflowing with cigarette and stogie butts.
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.
That night, the bar was less crowded. The difference was obvious on every surface. In place of cigarette packs and lighters, cellphones and BlackBerries sat next to sweating drinks. The only sign of smoke was in the clouds of steam from the dishwasher that occasionally wafted into the lounge.
"The air quality is much better," said Lauren Miller, 26, holding a chardonnay. "I don't have to take a shower as soon as I get home."
Nonsmokers -- particularly those who once had the habit -- delighted in the clear air. "I quit smoking in 2005. But really, I quit today," said Don Kroll, one of Sam's regular customers.
Woodrow Allen, 62, was one customer who clearly had not received Sam's e-mail. He lighted a cigarette, and as its plume curled in the clear air, he was promptly told to put it out.
He crushed the cigarette in the ashtray held before him and slammed his Old-Fashioned on the bar, unfinished.
"This is ridiculous. People who don't smoke should have a separate place of their own," he said angrily. "The key thing here is choice. Everyone should be able to choose. Right now, I'm going to choose to stop coming here."
He picked up his briefcase and stormed off.
There remained only one vestige of the previous era, and that was on the menu. Sam's classic and dry martini, combining gin, single malt scotch, dry vermouth and a lemon twist, still goes by its original name: the "Smoke Out."
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