But will it be comprehensive?

Just an FYI for Indiana residents.

Statewide smoking ban gains support in Indiana, by Lesley Stedman Weidenbener (Courier-Journal)

Support is building to make Indiana the 34th state in the nation to impose some kind of state-wide smoking ban, although questions remain about whether to exempt some businesses, including casinos and bars.

Forty cities, towns and counties in Indiana have imposed bans of varying reach, and supporters say they think 2011 could be the year the General Assembly passes a statewide restriction.

We're the Bar Belle's reason to drink today.

Thanks Sara ... the Bar Belle (LEO) offers the Pizzeria & Public House as today's Today’s Reason To Drink:

This week, Rich O’s (aka Sportstime Pizza and/or New Albanian Brewing Co.) has gone smoke-free. Rich O’s is one of my favorite places in the area (try the stuffed mushrooms!), and I’ll admit that at times, it was a bit too smokey … just because of its close quarters. New Albany does not require its bars and restaurants to be smoke-free … yet. This was the decision of owner Roger Baylor.

He says, “This is entirely ownership’s decision, based on unanimous support from our employees, and we strongly believe the change places us squarely on the right side of history.”

Good for Roger and Rich O’s!

It's the end of an era on Friday at the Pizzeria & Public House.

I will be at the NABC Pizzeria & Public House at lunchtime tomorrow (New Year’s Eve) smoking a cigar, because when we reopen for business on Monday, January 3, ours will be a newly minted smoke-free facility.

We first made the announcement in August …

The NABC Pizzeria and Pub will be smoke-free as of January 1, 2011.

… and now the appointed time finally has arrived, although in an odd, seemingly premature way. It was the subject of my Wednesday Weekly column last week:

Wednesday Weekly: Sadness at the passing of a regular habit?

Transitions of any sort are challenging, and I think way too much – always have, and probably always will. Just the same, the overwhelming motifs in my consciousness as we prepare to move forward into a brand new year are images from the past, which are becoming very dim in the rearview mirror. That’s because in 2011, NABC will be doing its level best to reinvent itself in a future tense, and to some extent, history will be both made and relegated.

Those who know me best always say that it isn’t necessary for me to try to explain myself; it invariably gets me into trouble, but it’s something I can’t turn off. As much as I might like to qualify it, the fact remains that the beer business with which I’ve been associated for almost twenty years always has been an extension of my own personality, and so when it comes to making policy changes like implementing a smoke-free workplace and radically reforming the guest beer program – simultaneously – there is a rigorous self-examination prefacing the public’s knowledge of the new direction.

Which is to say: These matters impact me, too.

A seismic shift in my professional “beer life” commenced about three years ago, and the aftershocks finally have awakened me to the next phase, to where I need to be, and where I hope many of us are heading. I’m grateful for the wake-up call. If you are out and about at lunchtime on Friday, December 31, I’ll be smoking a cigar at my own bar for the last time, so join me.

As a postscript, the smoke-free workplace may soon be a statewide phenomenon. In his most recent column in the New Albany Tribune, State Representative Ed Clere had this to say:

CLERE: Session will require resolve from all

... Typical New Year’s resolutions are also relevant to state government ...

... Quit smoking: A statewide smoking ban seems inevitable. Indiana is among a dwindling number of states that do not have some type of statewide ban. Support for a ban appears to be growing. The Indiana Chamber of Commerce has made a total ban on smoking in the workplace one of its 2011 legislative priorities, and earlier this month, Gov. Mitch Daniels said he would sign a ban. First, of course, the legislature would have to pass one, and the Senate has snuffed out recent attempts.

Wednesday Weekly: Sadness at the passing of a regular habit?

The announcement was made some months back, and consequently, everyone involved has had plenty of time to prepare for it.

Now, it’s almost here.

On January 3, when NABC’s original Pizzeria & Public House re-opens for business in 2011 following two days closed (New Year’s Day and the usual Sunday), we’ll be smoke-free.

Beginning on the 3rd, smoking no longer will be permitted inside the building at 3312 Plaza Drive – the entire building. No hidden nooks and crannies, and no exceptions, at least if I have anything to say about it. If we’re going to do it, it should be done correctly, or not at all.

Human nature being what it is – customarily dilatory – there was a flurry of “pro” and “con” comments just after the original announcement, and then relative quiet; now, as the “dreaded” day draws near, the prospective policy change has been mentioned a couple of times in conversation, and I’ve started thinking about it again.

My conclusion?

There isn’t anything dreadful about it, not at all, at least for the majority of patrons and workers.

It continues to surprise me that even the employees who smoke support the idea of a smoke-free building; in fact, they’re the ones who reintroduced the idea in the first place. Servers are on the front line, and no one knows daily conditions better than they do. If they’re willing to step outside at intervals in order to ensure a full dining room (and more tips), it’s a powerful argument in favor of modernity.

At the same time, there are moments in life when you find yourself standing quite clearly on the wrong side of history, and unfortunately for self-identified regulars who smoke, this is one of those times. For them, a smoking ban is a threat, an affront, and perhaps a mortal insult, and in many ways, I sincerely regret the inconvenience to them. Following is a Facebook comment excerpt from one of them, who I’ve known for a very long time.

“The decision will be bad for most of the regulars, but good for the business (and there will simply be a new group of regulars sprout on the couches like so many potatoes.) I have thought for a LONG time the Sportstime side needed to go non-smoking. There is no division there to separate tables and toddlers. But, I feel the backroom of Rich O’s should stay smoking, at least Mon.-Thurs., when it is full of mostly smoking regulars and there is rarely a wait in non-smoking. Fri.-Sat. may still have smoking regulars, of course, but there is almost always a wait in non-smoking those nights. But policies drawn with wide, straight lines tend to be easier for others to follow. So yes, the smoking will send me out. I cannot imagine that is any kind of surprise, or concern."

They're reasonable thoughts, and although I might choose to tackle the clauses one at a time, much of it can be summarized thusly: Bans on indoor smoking are about workplace safety, period.

If second-hand smoke is harmful, and I personally have come to accept that it is, if to a still uncertain extent, there is no way to protect the health of workers except to make the smoking ban uniform. Compromises are impossible to incorporate, and before someone asks, I opposed the New Albany council’s citywide ban (over-turned by mayoral veto in 2008) precisely because it was porous. If universality in my own place, or the entire city, means that I must give up my cherished cigars indoors, then so be it.

However, since I first read the above earlier today, my thoughts have veered away from pure considerations of the indoor smoking issue.

Instead, I’ve been considering what it means to be a regular in this tobacco-laden context. The complaints about the smoking policy change that I’ve heard so far have come almost entirely from frequent customers who’ve spent much time and money seated in one or both sides of the operation, smoking before, during and after eating and drinking.

Not for a moment is it my intention to be anything but grateful for their patronage over the past years, and it is my sincere hope that when a bit of time has passed, that there’ll still be some way to accommodate them at the Pizzeria & Public House. I like them, and I’ll miss them.

Conversely, I need to state this for the record: Given the many, generally positive, qualities to our business as noted by visitors over the years, ranging from the pizza to the ambience, the staff, and of course the beers, I hope I can be forgiven for expressing personal sadness of an almost overwhelming degree when I hear folks who’ve always rightly viewed themselves as the establishment’s backbone of regular patronage cite smoking as a deal-breaker.

So, that’s all it was, all this time?

That’s all we meant to you – a dry, climate-conditioned place to smoke?

No, I’m not offended. I’m not angry. I’m not anything at all, except very sad, and sad to a profound depth that even I’m surprised at feeling, having concluded long ago that it’s rare for me to feel much of anything, any longer.

To be sure, the longtime friend quoted above is showing uncommon understanding about the situation, and so my comments here are not exclusively directed to her. In fact, I’m not sure my comments are directed at anything or anyone other than to me. It’s like something finally has become clear to me after being hidden all these years, presumably behind a cloud of smoke.

So: It is my belief that those individuals and entities unable to adapt are likely to lose out in the end, and my business continues to evolve. It always has, and I hope it never stops evolving.

Furthermore, I’d like to believe that individuals are capable of evolution and reinvention. I’ve tried to be open to these processes myself, with variable results; just the same, I’ve changed. I'm not the same person at 50 as I was thirty years ago. Thank heavens.

On the other hand, apart from cigars, cigarettes have never been my thing. Perhaps I just don’t know, and can’t possibly fathom, the nicotine angle to this “regular” equation. Perhaps it's the nicotine talking, and not the persons.

You guys will be missing so much. The Pizzeria & Public House is poised to kick ass in 2011, and it’s been a while since I’ve been this excited by the prospects, both aesthetic and commercial. It is unspeakably sad that there’ll be some absences during this wonderful time.

Sad. Very, very sad. I'm not sure what else to say about it, so I'll stop writing.

Musings on a theme of scallops.

Last evening at the Bank Street Brewhouse, we hosted the monthly First Tuesday networking mixer, an event sponsored by Develop New Albany, the city’s volunteer-staffed Main Street organization.

We set up a cold plate in the area soon to be occupied by the brewery, and served beer and wine to roughly 100 people, some of whom remained afterward to dine and drink in front. As things wound down, I paused at the bar to chat with Syd and Cory. They were eating frites and scallops, but it wasn’t just the appetizing aroma of the food on their plates that caught my attention.

In fact, the whole room smelled like scallops. It made me hungry just thinking about it … and that’s the point. If smoking were allowed, the room would not have smelled like scallops. It would have smelled like cigarettes.

I always knew it, but sometimes you need a bit of olfactory reinforcement. Food of that caliber merits a smoke-free room, not out of considerations of employment safety, not owing to our obtusely ignoring personal rights and freedoms, but from a purely aesthetic consideration.

You'll be able to taste the beer better, too.

On the status of the proposed New Albany workplace smoking ban.

On August 4, New Albany’s city council passed the first reading of an indoor smoking ordinance.

The vote was 5-4, and two more readings are required, with the tally on the third being the final determinant. If vetoed, an overturn would require six votes. The council intends to vote for both second and third readings on August 21.

Those are the bare facts, and in terms of legislative politics, this is a topic better considered in depth at my other blog. Accordingly, here are a few links to it (two written by me and one by my blogging partner Jeff) and another piece I wrote at the request of the New Albany Tribune.

Council smoking farce: I'm taking it personally, too.

If you've been a slumlord for more than 100 years, are you exempt? (by Jeff Gillenwater)

Doesn’t New Albany have more important issues?

Hypocrisy meter nudges "tilt” as council’s smoking ordinance is revealed.

As we await the shoddy melodramatics to come, end games must be considered. What do we do at the pizzeria and pub if the ban comes to pass?

At work yesterday, we took a few minutes to pace 20 feet from the public entry doors. On the pizza side, smoking patrons can exit the rear door into the back yard, which we’ve intended for some time to convert into permanent outdoor seating. Short-term, we’d have to put down a hard surface and build a roof. Longer-term, we could dust off the old conversion plan and extend both along the length of the building, but equipment, and be in the business of outdoor seating.

On the pub side, it’s more complicated. The rear fire exit is behind the bar, and Indiana state alcohol law forbids customers from using it except in emergency situations. Cigarette breaks for pub denizens will have to be accessed from the front door, within an area to be constructed in front of the Prost windows. It's imperfect.

Currently, we have smoking and non-smoking areas at the pub. Because of customer demand, the non-smoking area has gotten larger over the years, and in general terms, most customers have at least seemed satisfied by the arrangement. We’ve yet to have an employee complain about being forced to work in smoke, but if so, we'd certainly try to accommodate the request.

The preceding is intended as raw information. My public stance on the matter may seem unusual to some, although to me, it reflects the best possible resolution of a deep personal division, and I’m content with that because life is rarely black and white.

We’ll see what happens next.

Just a few musings.

When I sat down yesterday to do the weekly NABC newsletter update, it finally dawned on me how insanely busy the last few days had been.

Beginning last Thursday night with NABC’s appearance at the Jeffersonville Main Street fundraiser, followed by two days of very successful art and music in our Prost special events wing, then the special Super Bowl opening hours on Sunday … and for me, a marathon New Albany city council meeting on Monday night, a blog meet ‘n’ greet on Tuesday and a sprinkling of personal civic commitments on Wednesday and even more on Thursday … all have combined into one continuous, unbroken blur accented by occasional dosages of medicine – otherwise known as craft beer.

The craft medicine's necessary because I have a bum left shoulder that needs to be repaired, and will do so, as soon as Gravity Head gets pushed away from the dock on March 9. It's a torn rotator cuff that unfortunately was not injured while throwing nasty curves – if that were the case, and given the traditional value of southpaws, I’d be considerably wealthier at this point – but probably cumulatively damaged and deteriorated during years of daily chores, bicycling and keg lifting. In short, an age-related annoyance, and one that must be repaired before the pain gets worse.

I mention the city council meeting because it was the occasion for the introduction of a smoking ordinance for the city of New Albany. The ordinance was tabled pending a committee review of what currently is an unwieldy, elephantine document that would be impossible to enforce given New Albany’s historic inability (or unwillingness) to observe its own laws. However, it will be coming back, as it is personal goal of the current council president to see some form of the ordinance passed this year.I’ll have more to say on this matter in the coming weeks, and some of it may surprise some of you. Here’s the short version.

Personally, I regard some variety of smoking ban as inevitable, and I’ll not be contesting the notion of indoor smoking regulation based on a scientific methodology that has determined second-hand smoke to be hazardous to workplace safety. In my view, it is the workplace safety angle that is carrying the anti-smoking day, and those many discussions of “rights” that arise during such legislative times primarily are instigated as, ahem, “smoke screens” to keep opponents distracted and off point.

However, I’m intent on seeing the end result be consistent, with the pain to be borne by all, and not some. Either second-hand smoke is harmful or it isn’t, and if it is, there can’t be exceptions, although you can expect numerous exceptions to be proposed during the forthcoming debate. To me, it’s all or nothing at all.

As for NABC, we’ve been moving in the direction of greater non-smoking access, and will continue to carve away at that perimeter whenever possible while awaiting the verdict. We’ll comply with whatever ordinance ultimately is passed. I understand that bar and restaurant customers who smoke are not going to be happy, either now or in the future, and we’ll try to accommodate our smoking clientele with outdoor areas if permitted to do so.

Stay tuned.