The Suddenly-Enforceable 25-Foot Rule

No one noticed, but last week the King County health department raised the stakes in the city's war on smoking by suing two bars for failing to comply with the nah-they'll-never-enforce-it rule that prohibits smoking within twenty-five feet of the doors, windows, and vents of bars and restaurants. You may have noticed that the twenty-five-foot rule generally isn't enforced, and smokers seem to wander as far afield as twenty-five inches from the door of most bars before lighting up. Check outside Neumos between sets, the Tractor on weekends and most neighborhood bars any time at all where it's not unusual to see patrons straddling the threshold of a back door; Manny's just inside the bar, American Spirit just out.

The bars that are getting sued—The George and Dragon Pub in Fremont and Zaina in Belltown—allow smoking on their decks, again, just like every other bar with a deck in Seattle ,which is why it's hard to fathom why these two have been singled out for action above and beyond the few citations that have previously been issued by the health department. We polled exactly one Seattle bar owner and it's his impression that "allowing or encouraging" smoking within twenty-five feet of the doors could get an establishment in trouble, and since Zaina sells hooka loads we're going to assume that falls well within "encouraging," but what about the George and Dragon? Did a health department official get a cold Shepard's pie or try cheering against England or something? Because these suits smell exactly like the selective and random enforcement that bars and bar-goers feared when the extreme language of the smoking ban was unveiled.

Smoking gull photo courtesy of n a r b o o and the Seattlest Flickr Pool.