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• Judge's ruling brings down curtain on bar's smoking 'performances' 

The show must not go on.

Questioning their validity and citing the risk of harmful cigarette smoke, a Scott County judge has halted an Elko bar's ongoing "theatrical performances," which exploited a loophole in a statewide ban on smoking in bars and restaurants.

"The narrow exception (in the Minnesota Clean Indoor Air Act) to allow indoor smoking in Minnesota does not inhibit expression of protected speech, nor does the statute grant authority to bar staff and customers an excuse for smoking in the bar," District Judge Jerome Abrams wrote in a 21-page order released Thursday.

Brought by the state Health Department against the Bullseye Saloon, the case was the first of its kind in Minnesota. But whether the ruling persuades all bars to end the so-called smoking "performances" remains to be seen. . . .

But he also seized on a footnote in the ruling speculating that some performances may fit within the statewide ban and that they may be considered on a case-by-case basis.

"I think we're going to start writing our own scripts," Ripley said.

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• Variety artists call on Equity to lobby parliament over smoking ban 

According to performers, the new legislation, which was introduced in July 2007, is causing clubs and pubs to close, creating a knock-on effect for artists who had previously been booked to perform in them. They claim opportunities for work are dropping by up to 50%.

Kevin Smyth, director of the Club and Institute Union, which represents working men's clubs - one of light entertainment's biggest employers - said he "totally understood" the calls for Equity to lobby parliament. Smyth has previously complained that the smoking ban has caused the rate of club closures to increase dramatically.

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• Scott County bar's 'theatrical' smoking case goes to court  

The decision now rests in the hands of a Scott County judge following the first legal arguments over a theatrical exception to the Minnesota Clean Indoor Air Act. Invoking the exception, bars across the state have drawn national attention over creative "performances" that walk the line between stage production, civil disobedience and flouting the law.

District Judge Jerome Abrams seemed willing to entertain the idea that the performances -- where patrons from the suburbs to the Iron Range have bought buttons, dubbed themselves actors and lit up in bars -- fall within a hastily added exception to the statewide ban originally intended to apply to venues such as the Guthrie Theater.

"I'm very accepting of ... Shakespeare in the Park," Abrams said at one point. "I don't think you need a proscenium arch or a thrust stage to call it 'theater.' "

A lawyer for the Minnesota Department of Health, which brought the case, said allowing the shows to go on would create an exception that swallows up the rule. Last month, the state sued the rural Elko bar Bullseye Saloon

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Judge hears arguments in suit against bar that holds smoking 'performances' 

A case over a loophole in Minnesota's smoking ban is now in the hands of a Scott County judge. Judge Jerome Abrams said he would likely rule within 10 days on whether an Elko bar can continue to hold theater nights

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Bullseye Saloon Letter 

Mr. John Linc Stine,

Can you look tens of thousands of Minnesotans in the eye and explain to them why Indian casino patrons and actors have more rights than they do? Can you explain why you are trying to enforce this blatant discrimination?

My name is Robert Ripley, and I own the Bullseye Saloon in Elko New Market, MN. Channel 5 News recently did a story on our theatre nights, and on the MDH actions, and inactions regarding them. Here are a few things that myself, my employees, my customers, and tens of thousands of hard-working Minnesotans would like to tell you:

First, my customer base, like the majority of hometown bars across the state of MN, is composed primarily of blue-collar working people. . . .

We Minnesotans are asking the MDH to stop regulating our personal rights, liberties, and freedoms. The Minnesota legislators that cast their vote for this Clean Indoor Air Act must have forgotten about all the hard-working blue-collar citizens that are represented by this letter. I, no, WE ask you John Stine, and our MN state legislators, to stop trying to regulate the amount of smoke that goes into the fire fighters lungs. Stop regulating how many carcinogens the line cook breathes in everyday. And stop trying to manage the risks of construction workers and bartenders. Just because something is "Not good for you," does not mean it has to be illegal. Please keep this in mind today while you drink your coffee or your soda pop, and eat your fast food…. before unconstitutional laws take those "unhealthy" freedoms away from you.

Sincerely, Robert Ripley, My Employees, My Customers, And Tens of Thousands of Hard-Working Minnesotans

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Bullseye Saloon Event Calendar 

Smoker's Rights Rally!!

SATURDAY MAY 3RD 2008 WE ARE FIGHTING FOR YOUR RIGHTS, AND WE NEED YOUR $UPPORT!

$10 TICKET AT THE DOOR GETS YOU ALL THE TAP BEER YOU WANT FROM 4-8PM

Fight Back!! Get your "Freedom Fight '08" t-shirts and show people where you stand!

Special Guest Speaker: Sheila Kromer - owner of Barnacles Resort and pioneer of "Theatre Nights" smoking in bars!

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Up in Smoke, Part Two 

Added: February 20, 2008 (Less info)

Performance of the Tobacco Monologues at Barnacles on Mille Lacs

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• High drama in the courts: Bar owners try to skirt state's smoking ban 

Dressed in his favorite Renaissance Festival outfit, complete with tights and feathered cap, Mark Benjamin was the very romanticized image of the Bard this winter as he encouraged other "actors" at Barnacles Bar in Mille Lacs, Minn., to light up and act out in a creative attempt to take advantage of the theater exception to the statewide smoking ban in October.

Later this year, Benjamin will get a chance to say fie to the law again, but this time he'll be telling it to the judge. Benjamin will represent Tom Marinaro, owner of Tank's bar in Babbitt, Minn., who was ticketed for "directing" a play that allowed patrons to smoke. On May 6, Robert Ripley, owner of the Bullseye Saloon in Elko, Minn., will go before a Scott County judge for the same charge. Ripley said Benjamin will also participate in that case. . . .

Some have declared themselves exempt private clubs, other have said they don't understand the "no" in "no smoking." They've lost in the courts. Benjamin's odds of winning are probably about the same.

Consider Taverns for Tots, a group of Toledo, Ohio, bar owners who banded together to tap into the exemption that allowed smoking in private clubs in the city. . . .

Although news of Minnesota's theatrical approach to the ordinance went viral over the Internet, a search did not turn up any proprietors outside the state who tried the same trick. Maybe others are waiting to see what will happen in Minnesota.

If they head up to Virginia later this year, they'll get a hint when Benjamin and Mike Kearney, city administrator for Babbitt -- a town that covers about 108 square miles just south of the Canada -- argue the law before a St. Louis County judge. They'll even get a chance to see what it's like for the folks who slog through snow at the end of April just to get to Tank's Bar.

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A Drunk Woman Looks at the Thistle and The Tobacco Merchant's Lawyer at Oran Mor, Glasgow  

Dalmellington, an innocent among the knaves of 18th-century Glasgow's tobacco merchants and, whisper it, slave merchants. . . .

The tenor of Glasgow at that time, when the city was making its first fortune, clearly attracts Heggie, as well as the moral shortcomings of its merchant class. Bringing it all back home also allows him to have fun with a soothsayer called Madame Zapatar and her preposterous prophesies - such as banning the smoking of tobacco in public places.

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The Tobacco Merchants Lawyer, Oran Mor Glasgow  

The ghosts of Francis Seneca McDade and the Reverend I M Jolly float over the characterisation of Enoch Dalmellington in Iain Heggie's contribution to A Play, A Pie and A Pint. . . .

Dalmellington, however, is more of an optimist in the face of his misfortunes. Heggie uses the Virginia Street lawyer to paint a picture of Glasgow in the days when the Merchant City was an enclave of fine houses occupied by men who made their fortunes in trans-Atlantic trade . . .

The smoking ban, riverside apartments and converted churches as palaces of entertainment are all foreseen, to the bafflement of our narrator.

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Teens sought to produce play about smoking 

RUMFORD - Talk about hard work and commitment. River Valley area teens are being sought to write, design and produce an educational play about smoking in just under a year.

Writers, singers, dancers, musicians, actors, poets, songwriters and theatrical technicians are needed, in addition to students interested in marketing, graphic design and advertising, according to Steve Casey of the River Valley Healthy Communities Coalition.

The coalition will conduct an informational meeting from 4 to 6 p.m. Thursday, April 24, in the community room at the Rumford Public Library.

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BROMLEY: If you can't beat 'em, ban 'em 

A new state ban on smoking in restaurants and other nightspots contains an exception for performers in theatrical productions, the Associated Press reports. So about 30 bars are getting around the ban by printing up playbills, encouraging customers to come in costume, and calling them actors. Hey, if they can call Pauly Shore an actor, why not the rest of us?

The state Health Department is threatening to bring down the curtain, but patrons continue to get into the act, speaking in funny accents and calling their theatrics "The Tobacco Monologues." . . .

Sure, it's unhealthy for kids to eat candy and for bar patrons to smoke. But it is Americans' God-given right to destroy themselves however they see fit. You can have our Skittles and our Camels when you pry them from our cold, dead fingers.

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• Byrne still fuming about 'censorship' of smoking ban in theatres  

SCOTS playwright John Byrne has continued his campaign for an exemption to the smoking ban for theatres.

Byrne claims that the ban on lighting up on the stage is "censorship" and makes performances of plays unrealistic.

Although the smoking ban was brought in by the Labour-Lib Dem coalition more than a year before the SNP came to power, the legislation had cross-party support.

Byrne, whose partner is Oscar-winning actress Tilda Swinton, said: "One of the things which they have not acted on is reversing the ban on smoking on stage during plays. I wrote to Alex Salmond after the election asking him to change the law and I received a reply from a civil servant saying they were not going to change. It's a form of censorship and it's wrong."

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In a One-Man Show, the Essence of Dr. King 

Transforming the black box theater of Luna Stage into an evocative replica of Memphis's Lorraine Motel, circa 1968, was challenge enough for Charlie Corcoran, who designed the sets for "The Man in Room 306. . . .

A strikingly human Dr. King emerges. Exhausted from lack of sleep, hounded by J. Edgar Hoover and the F.B.I. and under siege by white supremacists and the burgeoning Black Power movement, Mr. Edwards's Dr. King wolfs down any morsels of food still left on the room service tray and tries, unsuccessfully, to light a tiny cigarette butt.

"Don't tell Coretta," he begs, admitting that he promised her he would quit.

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Smoking Loophole Drama Goes to Court  

The Minnesota Health Department is suing a Scott County bar that is using a smoking ban loophole to allow patrons to puff away by posing as actors.

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