Where to Light Up the Night

By Fritz Hahn
Special to The Washington Post
Friday, February 2, 2007

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.

In Columbia Heights, the Wonderland Ballroom has put heaters among the picnic tables in the fenced-in patch of grass dubbed "the beer garden," and it's packed with 20-somethings sharing smokes on weekends -- so much so that bartenders joke it might be a hotter pickup scene than the dance floor.

Last year, Temperance Hall built a back patio to give smokers somewhere to go once the ban kicked in, and now a new heater is ready to offer warmth. General manager Dan Searing says that the lack of smoking hasn't been an issue for his tavern. "There's been some grumbling, but people seem to be accepting it. We've been very busy this month. Take that for what you will."

Searing says he believes his bar hasn't been affected as much because it's serving Petworth, a neighborhood with few options. "We're so location based. I think a lot of people who are coming to us are out of convenience. The smoking ban won't keep people from coming to us."

The advantage of going to places with rooftop decks or patios is that you can keep sipping your drink while having a cigarette, instead of leaving them inside at the mercy of the bartender or other patrons. At the Black Cat, the staff has cordoned off a section of sidewalk with velvet rope -- which owner Dante Ferrando calls "the smoking pen" -- and added a door to the front of the building to help manage the two flows of people: those waiting in long lines to get into the club to see a show, and those who have been inside and are having a cigarette between bands or needed a break from the bar.

"So far, it's working decently," Ferrando says. "It's a little bit of a pain, especially for the door staff" because they have to look for stamps signifying that smokers have already had their IDs checked and paid admission. There have generally been 30 to 50 people hanging out when I've been by, with people who aren't smoking hanging out and chatting as their friends light up.

"My fear is more for summer when people are hanging out," Ferrando says. "There's a social scene developing out there. With the weather cold, people go out, grab a cigarette and come back in. We'll see what happens when it's warm and there are a lot of people out there hanging out, with all the other bars on the block."

The Rock and Roll Hotel has similar problems, and co-owner Fritz Wood says his venue has switched from hand stamps to wristbands to show who's 21 and who has paid for that night's event. "If not, it would be mayhem for the security guards," he says, adding that the biggest change he has noticed is "more cigarette butts on the streets."

The Black Cat and the Rock and Roll Hotel have applied for permission to build rooftop decks, which would keep patrons off the street and allow them to keep their drinks, though neighbors have raised concerns about potential noise.

The biggest byproduct of the ban, though, are the throngs of people that crowd around the doorways of patio- and rooftop-free nightclubs. On a Saturday night walk from Adams Morgan through U Street, I noticed large groups of people -- smokers and nonsmokers alike -- clustering outside busy places such as Club Heaven and Hell, Tabaq and Republic Gardens. When the narrow sidewalks are jammed, pedestrians trying to get past have to step into the street. Not safe.

Martin Corboy, who runs the Angry Inch Saloon and the new Bobby Lew's Saloon, foresees neighborhood groups using smokers as a wedge against bars on the 18th Street strip. "I think, especially in Adams Morgan, it's really going to be a noise issue. I can see 20 people congregating and joking and laughing, and neighbors complaining. At the Angry Inch, where we have a line outside anyway [with people waiting to get IDs checked at the door], it's going to be an issue."

Still, Corboy, a nonsmoker, doesn't really mind the ban. "I initially was against it, but I haven't seen any adverse affects, personally. I've talked to a number of guys [who own bars], and in terms of the numbers, everyone's doing fine."

It's not just Washington bar owners who have been affected, either. Hoping to capitalize on the ban, Galaxy Hut owner Lary Hoffman sent out an e-mail in early January instructing smokers to "get your butts over to Virginia," since they could still smoke at his Arlington bar.

"I had a couple people see it and come in," Hoffman says. "I don't know if we're getting people to come over the bridge, but we've been really busy, and I think Virginians are deciding to stay in Virginia and have a couple of drinks, rather than just go to D.C."

For all the talk about business, Science Club owner Steve Maguire says, the ban's making his bar healthier. "Personally, it goes against my ethics, having the government tell me what people over 18 can do, but I've cut down my smoking substantially, as have most of my staff members," he says. "It used to be easy [for bartenders]: You'd just light up. Now, it's a multi-step process. You have to make sure all the work is done, prepare to leave the building and go outside. It's an adventure."