Pub owners flout Irish smoking ban

GALWAY, Ireland -- The smoke of rebellion rose across Ireland yesterday as a handful of pubs let customers smoke in defiance of a government ban.

Health Minister Micheal Martin promised to punish the owners of Fibber Magees, a Galway pub that was the first to rebel against the 3-month-old ban, and any others joining the campaign.

Martin, who led the drive to outlaw smoking in enclosed workplaces, called the pubs' actions ''an affront to the Irish people and an unacceptable defiance of the law."

''The full rigors of the law will be applied here . . . and quickly," he said.

The anti-smoking law, the first imposed by any nation and a close copy of laws in California and more than a dozen US cities, provoked strong opposition from owners of Ireland's 10,000-plus pubs.

But until this week, no pub publicly defied the government, partly because opinion polls showed strong support for the ban across the nation of 3.9 million.

The owners of Fibber Magees, a pub on Eyre Square in this nightlife-rich western city, said its business was off by two-thirds because of the smoking ban. This week, owners Ciaran Levanzin and Ronan Lawless plunked ashtrays on upstairs tables and taped up a sign, ''You are now entering a smoking area."

Ronan Lawless, one of the owners, said the gambit is the only way to make money. Otherwise, he said, he will be forced to close by September: ''We're damned if we do and damned if we don't. We're either going to go out of business or be put out of business."

Violating the ban can result in fines of up to $3,700 for each customer busted for smoking.

''I'll pay fines if they come to me," Lawless said. ''I'm just making a stand for my livelihood."