Archives for the 'portland' tag
Bans snuff out more than cigarettes
One more post about smoking bans and then I’ll move to actual food. Or maybe drinks. But first, this:
Yet as wonderful as the beer is at the Horse Brass, its community revolves around something more: smoking. The bar is notorious among non-smokers for its tobacco haze and its brown walls and ceiling, which people swear were once white. For those who enjoy tobacco, the Horse Brass is a welcome sanctuary in a city where many businesses are already smoke-free. It’s easy to light a cigar, strike up a conversation, and make new friends. Unfortunately, I had only three months to feel at home here: The state legislature decreed that on January 1, 2009 all bars and restaurants in the State of Oregon had to become smoke-free.
That’s from my article at Doublethink today about my favorite bar in Portland and how its culture has been wiped out by the nanny statists in Salem and their brand new smoking ban. At a bar like the Horse Brass, you either get it or you don’t. The busybodies in the state legislature clearly don’t.
Don’t need no stinkin’ bans!
Chad Wilcox sends in a blog post noticing that bars and restaurants in Arlington, VA (where I lived for most of the past five years) are trending smokefree in the absence of legislation:
They said Arlington’s bars would never voluntarily go smoke-free … then Liberty Tavern did and places like Eleventh, Union Jacks, and Clarendon Grill soon followed.
They said sports bars would never go smoke-free … then Summers created a separate smoke-free bar, followed by Four Courts and Crystal City Sports Pub, and Thirsty Bernie’s opened entirely smoke-free.
Now Arlington’s best diner, Bob & Edith’s at Columbia Pike & S. Wayne St., is going 100% smoke-free.
Arlington makes an interesting test case. It’s one of the wealthiest, most liberal cities in the country, and residents would surely approve a smoking ban if they were allowed to. Fortunately they’re restrained by Virginia law that forbids local anti-smoking ordinances to exceed the state’s own rules. Every year a statewide ban is introduced in the senate and immediately shot down by the tobacco-friendly house.
The fact that popular bars and established restaurants are voluntarily choosing to restrict smoking shows that ban opponents have been right all along: given demand for smokefree environments, profit-seeking business owners will eventually provide them, if not as immediately as a legislative ban would. And as someone who generally prefers bars with clean air, I think that’s fantastic — as long as dive bars like Jay’s or the backroom cigar lounge at EatBar remain free to set their own policies too.
The same has been true in my new home of Portland, OR, another city one might have expected to institute a smoking ban long ago. Even before the statewide ban went into effect last week I noticed there were far more smokefree bars here than in other places I’ve lived. I checked the directory at SmokeFreeOregon.com and the site listed more than 400 establishments within the city limits. That was hardly a lack of choice for non-smokers.
At best, one could make the case for nudging businesses to go smokefree with one-time tax breaks to speed up adoption of the policy. Otherwise, leave people free to associate on their own terms and they’ll eventually figure out ways to accommodate each other. There’s no need for coercion.
Response to comments 1/10/09: Several people note in the comments that this trend has been accelerated by bans in other jurisdictions changing people’s expectations. I have no doubt that this is true. But that makes the case for a ban in Virginia weaker, not stronger. And the same is true for DC. Now that residents have had several years of smokefree bars, the city should lift the ban; there will be many fewer bars that revert to allowing smoking than there were prior to it.
The main point to take away from this is that comprehensive smoking bans are overkill. Softer policies can encourage the development of smokefree markets while still respecting the rights of business owners and smokers, who happen to be people too.
For another post about why I think that demand for smokefree bars is politically overstated, see here.
‘Voodoo Doughnut’ Will Put Deep-Fried Spell on You
Portland’s one of my favorite cities on the planet–albeit one I’ve only spent about a week in. If I were to move anyplace from my tepidly beloved DC, it’d probably be Portland.
The city probably has a better mix of quality local food, beer, and wine than any city on earth. And it’s quirky, dedicated, and unique places like Voodoo Doughnut that make it truly special. You want bacon on your doughnut? Cereal? You got it.
Learn more in the excellent interview and photo essay below.
Official site here. Slow-to-load but excellent photo documentary on Voodoo Doughnut here. Latest on Voodoo’s new second location at Willamette Week. Anthony Bourdain munching doughnuts on No Reservations at Serious Eats.
Thanks to my buddy Ivan, whose friend did the interviewing, for the tip.
Backhanded Review of the Week
Under the title “Could be Worse,” Alison Hallett writes a great review in the Portland Mercury of a restaurant that, well, could be worse. The lede:
Leonardo’s isn’t going to make it onto any critical best-of lists anytime soon, with a menu of passable Italian dishes dressed up with bells and whistles that aren’t fooling anyone into thinking the food is better than it actually is. (Pine nuts! Dried cranberries!) The place is mediocre, but inoffensively so—and considering that Leonardo’s is situated in a space formerly home to restaurants that actually were offensive (the short-lived tapas joint Graze, and before that Nina’s Place), this actually is a backhanded endorsements of sorts. Simply put: Leonardo’s is the best restaurant to ever occupy 939 NW 10th Avenue.
The whole review reads like that — funny, snarky, and smart. Good stuff. More here.
Also noteworthy: the Mercury is looking for a food editor.
