Nicole Brodeur is one of my two favorite columnists at the Seattle Times—well, one of my two favorite local columnists. My favorite columnist on earth (at the moment) is Miss Manners, whose column appears in the Seattle Times on Thursday. Yesterday Brodeur wrote a terrific column on initiative 901, the proposed smoking ban, and its troubling 25 foot rule. (A lot of papers are just beginning to discuss the 25 foot rule—the rule, part of 901, would ban smoking within 25 feet of a door or a window—a story that Eli Sanders broke in The Stranger back in July.)

Two observations: Brodeur confesses to being a smoker herself. She is, however, a particular kind of smoker:

…if I’m in a place with loud music and strong drinks, I may have a Camel Light between my fingers. I smoke a little, then go home and shed my smelly clothes.

It’s casual, situational smokers like Brodeur who have been shown to quit smoking in droves once a smoking ban in bars, restaurants, and clubs goes into effect. Smokers like Brodeur light up in bars and clubs because they’re nervous, or so that they can have something to do with their hands, or because they’re around other people who are smoking—heck, some of `em may even smoke because they enjoy it. But it’s been proven that making smoking even a little less convenient for smokers like Brodeur, even when that inconvenience only means having to step outside, prompts many of them stop smoking entirely.

Please note: In places that have already enacted smoking bans—California, New York—there’s no 25 foot rule. Just making smokers have to step outside at all is enough to get many to quit. You don’t have to send them into the middle of the steet.

Observation Two: Brodeur quotes the owner of Le Pichet, one of my favorite restaurants in Seattle.

Le Pichet owner Jim Drohman seems to have hit middle ground in his Parisian place. Smoking is allowed at the tables outside, but forbidden in the bar during the dinner hours: 5:30 to 10 p.m. After that, the air is everyone’s.

Not really, Jim. When the smokers start lighting up at Le Pichet—which is a tiny, tiny place—the air belongs to the smokers exclusively. Le Pichet is so small that even just two or three people smoking is enough to fill the whole place with smoke. I’ve gone elsewhere as early as 9 PM because I didn’t want to have to flee Le Pichet before I finished my meal because the place was filling up with smoke. (And I’ve been in Le Pichet before 10 and found people smoking.) If I’m hungry and on First Avenue late at night I skip Le Pichet and go to the smoke-free Virginia Inn next door.

Drohman is, however, voting for 901:

Drohman is going to vote for I-901 because it will simplify things: no smoking at all. But he had to say, the 25-foot rule “seems more punitive than practical.”

Agreed: the 25-foot rule is punitive and impractical. Its presence in the text of 901 cost it the Stranger Election Control Board’s endorsement. 901’s case wasn’t helped by the weaselly/dishonest spinning of the initiative backers—repeat after me, Nick Federici: “We fucked up.” But as I wrote yesterday, I’m personally voting for 901. I want the air at Le Pichet—and every other bar and restaurant in town—to truly belong to everyone, and that means going smoke-free.