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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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