At Kells, an Irish Pub in the market that went non-smoking way back when all of Ireland went non-smoking, Dan Savage cornered Nick Federici, director of governmental relations for the American Lung Association of Washington, and asked him if he would have left the the problematic 25-foot rule out of I-901 if he had the initiative to do all over again. (The 25-foot rule, close readers of The Stranger will remember, is the reason we didn’t endorse the initiative.) Federici replied: “Just because people don’t like it, doesn’t mean it’s not the right thing to do.”

And Dave Delvallee, vice president of government relations of the American Cancer Society, said: “I think we would do it again, it’s good public health policy.”

That’s on the record. Off the record, Savage reports, a few people at the 901 party said they wished they’d left the problematic 25-foot rule out. But the true believers outnumbered the realists by 100 to 1.

Here’s Savage shaking hands with Federici, after he told him that despite The Stranger’s “no” endorsement, Savage himself voted for the smoking ban: