California Dreamin'?

Last year, the state of California enacted the strictest anti-smoking law in the country, banning cigarettes from nearly all public places, including bars. Organizations such as the American Cancer Society, the American Lung Association, and the American Heart Association think Austin should follow California's lead.

"Whenever Austin's ready to tackle nonsmoking bars, we'll be there to help," says Jeane Startzell, executive director of the Austin Unit of the American Cancer Society. Her sentiments are echoed by Dr. Eduardo Sanchez, American Heart Association president, who says his group "will continue to monitor the situation and develop strategies along with our partners, the American Cancer Society and the American Lung Association, to support the goal of a smoke-free environment for our children and citizens to enjoy."

Is Austin ready to go the way of California? Or will a total smoking ban kill the live music scene? KVET personality and Geezinslaws band leader Sammy Allred, an ex-smoker, equates a total ban on smoking to nothing short of fascism. "I quit them Virginia Slims several years ago, so it's got nothing to do with smoking," Allred says. "I just don't think the ordinance should have been written in the first place."

Some bar owners, speaking off the record, say they'll go out of business if a total smoking ban hits Austin -- but they don't plan to go quietly. Under the current ordinance (and even California's ordinance), tobacco shops, as well as private residences and private clubs, are exempt from the law. Since many bar owners also hold tobacconist licenses, some plan to redefine themselves as tobacco shops if pushed to the limit.

The idea's not unprecedented. A club in Santa Cruz, Calif. -- called the One Double Oh Seven Club and Smoking Parlor -- legally allows smoking on its premises, thanks to the loophole. Other cigar bars, such as the Fumo Blu Cigar Smoking Club in San Francisco, get around the law by selling memberships and billing themselves as a private club.

Raul Calderon, a nonsmoker and attorney with the city's legal department, says that can't happen here. "If somebody said they were a tobacco shop, we'd take a close look at the business. We'd make an issue if they thought selling a little tobacco would qualify them as a tobacco shop and we'd use a common-sense definition. If they're a bar making most of their money from liquor, we won't let them use that as a smoke screen," Calderon says, pun intended.

For some, the change can't come soon enough. "When you go out to a club, if you do get seated at a nonsmoking section, it's often too close to a smoking table anyway, so you wind up inhaling smoke," says Susan Colpitts, an Austin music fan. "I suffer from asthma, so if I'm exposed to cigarette smoke at all, it means a trip to the emergency room for me."

For others, a ban on smoking in bars means an end to the live music scene faster than you can say Steamboat. "I hate the anti-smoking Nazis; they piss me off," says Sean Tongate, a smoker who runs Total Pieces Catering and bartends at several Austin clubs. "What are they doing policing me? Are those guys in charge of the air? Everyone says the ban worked in California, but who in the hell wants to be like California?"