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• State of Minnesota, Respondent, vs. Thomas Eugene Marinaro, Appellant. (PDF) 

S Y L L A B U S

The district court did not err by concluding that customers of appellant's bar were not engaged in a "theatrical performance" while smoking in the bar on the date of the alleged offense. Accordingly, the district court did not err by finding appellant guilty of allowing smoking in a public place in violation of Minnesota Statutes section 144.417, subdivision 2(a) (Supp. 2007). . . .

The district court did not err by concluding that the conduct of the customers of Tank's Bar on the afternoon of March 14, 2008, was not within the theatrical-performance exception to the Minnesota Clean Indoor Air Act's prohibition on smoking in bars. Therefore, the district court did not err by finding Marinaro guilty of the charged offense. 

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• Appeals Court: Bar Violated Smoking Ban 

The Minnesota Court of Appeals has agreed with a judge's ruling that "theater nights" in a northeastern Minnesota bar were violating the state's smoking ban.

Tank's Bar in Babbitt had allowed patrons to smoke under a loophole in the smoking ban that allows actors to smoke as part of a theatrical production.

But a St. Louis County judge ruled in May that wearing a badge that says "Actor" doesn't make it a theatrical production. On Tuesday, the appeals court agreed.

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Local entrepreneur touts benefits of new smokeless, tobacco-less E-cigarette  

Smoking is back -- it's legal.

As long as it's an Elxtro Vapor Cigarette.

Elxtro is a company started by 26-year-old Valparaiso resident Marc Smith. He got the idea after his mother saw a commercial for an electronic cigarette, or "e-cigarette" and promptly ordered $400 worth.

"I got into the business," Smith said. "I did all the research and contacted the manufacturers." . . .

Smith said he has exclusive arrangements to sell his product in several other Westfield malls and plans to launch in the West Coast and Florida as well. He has bartenders in Chicago demonstrating the cigarette behind the bar, hopes to vend the product at cancer treatment centers and gas stations and plans to take the E-cigarette to the stage.

"My next target is theater," he said.

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Comedian Ron White plays down hubbub in N. Dakota over cigar smoked onstage 

Comedian Ron White is breaking his silence about authorities giving him grief for puffing on a cigar during his act last month in North Dakota.

White, speaking with the TMZ gossip TV show Monday outside a Beverly Hills restaurant, called the ash-clash in Bismarck "a little cigar incident, no big deal."

White said that cities on his tour know "that I am going to smoke on stage. It's really considered a stage prop, as much as I hate to say it."

Online notices promoting the April 30 show said: "Caution: This show is for mature audiences only. Artist smokes a cigar and drinks scotch onstage." . . .

Smoking in public places is punishable by fines of up to $500.

Now it's up to the city attorney about whether to pursue White for the violation.

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AND THE WINNERS ARE… THE IMPERIAL TOBACCO CANADA FOUNDATION SUPPORTS ELEVEN LEADING CANADIAN ARTS ORGANIZATIONS (PDF) 

From a musical based on the story of a shipwreck survivor in Newfoundland to a new Canadian opera, and from a morality play acted on horse-drawn wagons in British Columbia to an innovative Montreal photography festival, the Imperial Tobacco Canada Foundation is delighted to announce the winners of its two inaugural arts donations programs, New Creation in the Arts and the Arts Achievement Award.

The prestigious Arts Achievement Award winner is LE MOIS DE LA PHOTO À MONTRÉAL, an international biennale of contemporary photography mounted in multiple Montreal public spaces, galleries and artist-run centres. This month long celebration includes educational and curatorial programming, keynote lectures and exhibitions. LE MOIS DE LA PHOTO À MONTRÉAL attracts visitors and artists from around the world and garners international attention.

“LE MOIS DE LA PHOTO À MONTRÉAL is an extraordinary achievement which reaches sustained excellence at all levels, especially in its strong creative focus and outstanding curatorial skills,” said Benjamin Kemball, president and CEO of Imperial Tobacco Canada and chair of the board of the Imperial Tobacco Canada Foundation. . . .

The ten winners of the New Creation in the Arts are:

Smoke ban stubs out Rab C star's creativity  

SCOTS actor and playwright Tony Roper has claimed the smoking ban has stopped him from writing.

Roper, 67, best known as Rab C Nesbitt's pal Jamesie Cotter, famously wrote classic comedy-drama The Steamie in 1988.

He said he wrote the play, novels and much of his other best work while smoking cigars in his favourite hotel, the Garfield House Hotel at Stepps, Glasgow. But since smoking was banned in public places in 2006, he says he no longer writes as much.

He said: "I used to go up to the Garfield and sit and meditate what I was going to write.

"The manager was great and used to come out and give me coffee and biscuits. I'd sit there with my coffee and biscuits and a cigar, and it was very relaxing.

"I wrote three novels and two plays up there. Now you can't smoke in the place I don't do it any longer – and I don't write as much as I used to."

Roper, speaking on BBC Alba's Cuide ri Cathy, to be broadcast later this month, said he had created "hundreds" of characters while smoking cigars in the hotel.

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• Fight Against Tobacco Consumption Stepped Up  

THE Tobacco Free Association of Zambia (TOFAZ) has resorted to the use of performing arts in its campaign to discourage the cultivation and consumption of tobacco.

TOFAZ executive director Brenda Chitindi said during a tobacco control workshop in Lusaka yesterday that the organisation intended to use all effective means to free the nation from tobacco.

Ms Chitindi said the organisation wanted to sensitise the tobacco consumers through the use of drama groups to get the message across.

She said using artistic means to sensitise the nation would be the easiest way of delivering the message to the nation.

She said most of the youth lacked knowledge on the dangers of consuming tobacco and needed to be sensitised. . . .

She said the programme would be funded by the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) under the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Meanwhile, Institute of Economic and Social Research researcher Richard Zulu said that there was need to implement the World Health Organisation framework convention on tobacco control.

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On the London Stage - Neo-Classicism and Farce Fail to Lift London Stage Out of Doldrums 

“The Last Cigarette,” the Simon Gray-Hugh Whitemore collaboration at the Trafalgar Studios through Aug. 1, tends to find its trio of performers not barreling through doors but very much locked into position, cigarettes at the ready, inhabiting three versions of their creator. Such posture befits an adaptation of “The Smoking Diaries,” a typically candid, humorous, self-critical memoir from Mr. Gray, the playwright and chronicler who died last August at age 71. . . .

A minor play confronting major concerns, “The Last Cigarette” clearly has an effect on its audience, if the opening night crowd was any gauge. Following a play about a free thinker who lit up to the very end, how fitting, I suppose, that a noticeable portion of the house could be seen on the street afterward, seeking relief from the play’s deathly landscape in, you guessed it, a smoke.

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• Comedian may be charged for smoking at Bismarck show 

A popular comedian could face charges in Bismarck for a regular part of his routine.

Ron White, the Scotch-swilling, cigar-smoking Blue Collar Comedy Tour comedian, performed at the Belle Mehus Auditorium on April 30. But prior to that, a Bismarck citizen tipped off police that part of White's routine might run afoul of a Bismarck city ordinance prohibiting smoking in public places.

Gary Semmel, 55, wrote a letter dated April 17 to the Bismarck Police Department, letting them know White smokes a cigar during his act, which seems to be at odds with the city ordinance prohibiting smoking in public places, Sgt. Dwight Offerman said.

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Comedian Ron White Could Face ND Charge  

Comedian Ron White sold out two shows in Bismarck last week.

However, its not his jokes making news...but his onstage activity.

A Bismarck Police report states White could face charges of smoking in public places prohibited.

White's comedy routine includes him holding a glass in one hand and a lit cigar in the other.

A Bismarck resident sent a letter to the police department informing them of the routine.

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Smoking Bloomberg, the Musical, Gets Transport Group Reading in NYC April 22 

Smoking Bloomberg, the topical musical comedy about New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg's ban on smoking tobacco in public places, gets a Manhattan reading April 22.

Transport Group and producer Jennifer Maloney (Spring Awakening, Rock of Ages) present the reading as part of TG's Dark Night Series, at 7 PM at The Connelly Theatre, currently home to TG's world premiere, Being Audrey, at 220 East 4th Street . . .

Smoking Bloomberg is billed as "a hilarious new musical satire about a Korean dry cleaner who seeks her revenge on Mayor Bloomberg when his smoking ban ruins her business." The "highly irreverent show explores the loss of personal freedoms in modern-day America, targeting the Left, the Right, and everyone in between."

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Review: Opera San Jose's 'Carmen' is sexy and fun, but not quite sizzling  

Then there are the parades and street scenes in old Seville, Spain, so vivid in Opera San Jose's appealing new production of "Carmen," by Georges Bizet, which opened Saturday at the California Theatre in downtown San Jose. . . .

Her cigarette girls, the Gypsies, show plenty of leg. And everyone smokes; there are so many cigarettes dangling from so many sets of lips that you would think Seville would burn to the ground.

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SMOKE BREAK 

SPIRITS were high in more ways than one at the opening night of "Hair." [Review Here] While the cast smoked herbal cigarettes onstage to simulate marijuana joints, some "old hippie" audience members got into "real '60s-style smoking outside during intermission -- and it wasn't tobacco," a source told us.

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THE LAST CIGARETTE Moves To The West End 4/21-8/1 

Richard Eyre's production of The Last Cigarette, adapted by Hugh Whitemore and Simon Gray from Gray's critically acclaimed The Smoking Diaries, is to transfer to the West End having previously opened the 2009 Season at the Chichester Festival Theatre. Starring Felicity Kendal, Nicholas le Prevost and Jasper Britton, who all perform as Simon Gray, The Last Cigarette will run at Trafalgar Studios from 21 April - 1 August, with opening night 28 April 2009. Designs are by Rob Howell with lighting and projection by John Driscoll and music by George Fenton.

Sardonic, humane, intelligent and often outrageously funny, this stage version of The Last Cigarette was completed just before Gray's death last summer and draws on his many volumes of memoirs, including Fat Chance, Enter a Fox, The Smoking Diaries and Coda.

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The Last Cigarette, Minerva Studio, Chichester, UK 

Fifteen cigarettes are got through in the hour and three-quarters of playing time. That’s not as bad as it sounds, since three actors – Jasper Britton, Felicity Kendal and Nicholas le Prevost – all play author Simon Gray, from whose memoirs he and Hugh Whitemore fashioned this adaptation, and they take the cigs in unison. But note I say “got through”, not “consumed”, still less “smoked”: the cigarettes are introduced to lighters, puffed on, stubbed into ashtrays but never actually lit, never mind inhaled. Given that this is the story of Gray’s developing lung cancer after 50-odd years of 60 a day, this is problematic. Still, it could have been worse: they could have used Honeyrose herbals.

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