Where to Light Up the Night

The District's Kristen Ann Peterson, 23, left, and Mia Hines, 27, of Alexandria at the Black Cat. (Michael Temchine - Freelance)

It has been a month since the D.C. smoking ban went into effect, prohibiting patrons from lighting up inside almost all bars and nightclubs in the city. Before the law went into effect, club owners, bartenders and promoters worried that it would be bad for business. Here's the flip side: I've talked to owners of neighborhood bars, dives, upscale lounges and live music venues, and not one reports a drop in business because of the ban. In the past 30 days or so, a few saw sales get stronger, and others just found ways to deal with the new restrictions.

As snow showers whipped through Washington last week, smokers huddled under the tall metal braziers on Science Club's brick-walled patio, trying to stay warm while finishing their cigarettes.

Just over a dozen blocks away at Shelly's Back Room, men in business suits relax on leather couches, sipping from snifters and puffing away on imported Cohiba and Ashton cigars. A pall of smoke hangs in the room, and the air is redolent with strong tobacco. When people call to ask if it's true that Shelly's still allows smoking, the bartender replies, "Yes, sir. We are the last bastion of freedom."

A relic of the late '90s cigar bar craze, one wall at Shelly's is lined with 100 personal humidors, available for $500 a year, each with a brass plaque identifying the owner. Inside a glass-fronted cabinet are high-end stogies such as the Davidoff Millennium Lonsdale ($22.50) and the Opus X ($29). At the bar, customers are free to enjoy their Camel Lights and Parliaments as well as a La Flor Dominicana, making Shelly's a happy hour refuge for all smokers. (Even on a Monday evening, the bartender had sold out of cigarettes and was sending customers to a nearby liquor store for packs.)

Do the math: Lounges are required to make at least 10 percent of their profit from tobacco sales. With pints of Hook and Ladder's Backdraft Brown Ale selling for about $5, that means Shelly's needs to sell one Davidoff Lonsdale for every 45 glasses of beer. Since most tables feature at least one person smoking, that shouldn't be a problem.

Ozio hasn't been as much of a cigar bar since its move from 19th and K streets NW to 18th and M, but the four-level club still boasts a walk-in humidor and individual cigar lockers, so the management says customers are free to light up while sipping half-price drinks during the daily "Martini Hour." At Chi-Cha Lounge, the well-dressed Saturday night crowds continue to recline on couches and puff away on water pipes filled with flavored tobacco.

Not so fast, says D.C. Department of Health spokeswoman Phillippa Mezile. As of Jan. 26, seven bars and lounges had applied for exemptions, and they "shortly will receive a conditional certificate allowing them to have smoking." However, she wrote in an e-mail, "no one has yet been granted an exemption. Thus, no one should be smoking right now."

Other popular lounges seeking exemptions include Gazuza and Agua Ardiente, which say they are hookah bars; TG Cigar near the Washington Convention Center; and Ollie's Trolley restaurant on L Street NW.

The overwhelming majority of Washington nightspots, though, don't qualify for exemptions, and since most smokers aren't going to just give up the habit, the bars are trying to accommodate them as much as possible, despite the unpredictable weather.

Bars with rooftops and patios are making out the best. At the Reef in Adams Morgan, for example, five propane-fueled braziers are clustered around the rooftop's horseshoe-shaped bar, where smokers sip beer and hang out, even when they're not lighting up.

"For us, it's been great," owner Brian Harrison says. "It's been cold, but our business is up from before, which is due in some part to the smoking ban." Harrison says the Reef has been "putting the word out" that they were going to modify the roof for cold weather, adding more umbrellas, heating units and lights to keep smokers warm and dry. It seems to be working. Reef staffers estimate that when the temperature is higher than 40 degrees, about 70 percent of the patrons on the roof are smoking. Once it goes below 40 degrees, the percentage of smokers rises to almost 100 percent.

The only downside is that the Reef's rooftop is very popular on weekends, often resorting to a "one up, one down" policy in place by 11:30 to prevent crowding. When spring rolls around and people can't get onto the roof because it's filled with smokers, I'm sure there will be some grousing.