Blarney Stone

Yesterday Gov. Tim Kaine signed the bill that effectively bans smoking in restaurants and bars -- and, for all we know, in shebeens. During the debate we said that the issue relates neither to the rights of smokers nor to the rights of non-smokers but to the property rights of owners, who ought to decide whether to allow smoking in their establishments or to go smoke-free. Trends suggest that if left to their own devices (and to the sentiments of the marketplace), most restaurateurs and publicans eventually would snuff out smoking. A reliance on freely made decisions promotes the informal code essential to social happiness.

Our argument lost, as yesterday's signing ceremony suggests. The motives of the governor and of the legislators supporting the ban lie above reproach. We disagree with their means. Tonight we will toast them, possibly in a café listed as non-fumeur.

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Now that Virginia has traduced property rights, may we have a ban on artificial sweeteners, by gad, sir, please? We are not referring to sugar substitutes, but to atmosphere. Nothing ruins a session at a bar more thoroughly than piped-in music and televisions with sound ablare. Television-free saloons are the best, but sets with captions instead of sound are indignities the civilized can endure.

Sunday's New York Times ran an article about Gotham's few remaining bars without TV sets. According to the observations of salesmen for the Brooklyn Brewery, the paper says, "televisionless bars in the five boroughs are a vanishing species." The brewery's president lamented, "The older I get, the more I look for a place where you can hear yourself think -- a clean, well-lighted place." Less enlightened souls prefer distractions, or need them. Despite cell phones and text-messagers, we have lost the gift of gab.

Professional ethics compel us to disclose that blessed McSorley's has a TV, but it is in the back, is not always on, there is seldom sound, and during our investigations we never -- never -- have seen anyone paying attention to it, even when the Giants were playing.

Conversational buzz can soothe; the lad from from the Brooklyn Brewery seems an ideal bar-mate. There is something to be said for silence as well, punctuated by glass clicking on moist mahogany. Yet if you must have music while you relax, then make it live -- and make it by the likes of the Clancy Brothers or the Dubliners, by the likes of Bobby Short, Billie Holiday, Nancy Wilson, and Blossom Dearie. Play it again, Sam, but just don't play "Misty" for us.