Nipped in the butt

Regulation: Smoking bans take aim at Big Tobacco but often hit the little guy | Mark Bergin

EVERETT, Wash.—Less than a dozen cars speckled the parking lot outside the White Elephant Bar and Grill on a recent Saturday night in this growing Seattle suburb. Inside, most booths and tables sat empty while two electronic dart boards hung unused on the side wall. A handful of customers encircled the restaurant's lone pool table, sipping beers and conversing easily at normal volume levels. Owners John and Donna Kerns leaned on the end of a deserted bar and watched helplessly as their once buzzing establishment choked to a slow death on its clean, smoke-free air.

So it is for thousands of after-hours entertainment spots nationwide struggling to survive a recent spike in state smoking bans. All but two of the 13 states to outlaw cigarettes in bars and restaurants have done so within the past five years. It's a trend that leading anti-smoking fundraiser the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation celebrates as progress in its war on "big corporate tobacco."