My old ciggie habit, and how Utah's indoor-smoking ban changed everything 

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The only New Year's resolution I ever made that mattered was quitting smoking. Like nearly everyone else, I'd forever given in to the reality that no matter how much I resolved to lose weight, I still gained a couple pounds each year instead.

Despite resolving to be a better person, I too often remained an asshole despite my best intentions. I swore to God I would swear less, but damn it, I'll be a sumbitch if that one ever lasted more than a minute.

As far as I can recall, my pledge to quit smoking in 2008 is the only resolution I ever kept, never mind that I'd made the same resolution annually at least 30 times prior. Call it luck, but I finally got a resolution to stick, and I'm grateful for that.

Medical journals say that after one year of quitting smoking, the chances of a heart attack are cut in half and that after 15 years, the chances of a coronary event are the same as that of nonsmokers. I'd shout "hallelujah" for crossing that threshold, but I've been known to jinx myself, so I won't do that lest I start clutching my chest like Redd Foxx used to do.

That's all basically good news for me, but to be sure, smoking damages lots more than just the heart and lungs. Smoking is also no friend of the mouth, throat, esophagus, cervix and bladder.

I'm guessing that the plural pills I take daily might not have been medically prescribed if I had never listened to my good buddies—teenage drinking knuckleheads all—and sucked down my first Camel stud. "What are you afraid of, you dumb Greek? It's not gonna kill you!"

They were sort of right—I ain't dead yet. Nor, gratefully, are most of my other once-smoking buddies from the era when sucking on ciggies was stupid and smelly—but cool!—and we were yet to be cast as pariahs. There were lots of us back at those Alice Cooper and Moody Blues concerts who smoked indoors and out without so much as a passing thought about second-hand smoke.

We even smoked in movie theaters. Sheez! And on airplanes—I still can't believe they let that ever occur, even considering the seats were not so cramped back then and dousing a cigarette would not require untangling body parts from your seat companions first. We smoked in restaurants until they banned that practice. Utahns smoked openly in private clubs—basically what we call nightclubs today—until New Year's Eve 2008, long after public smoking was out the door nationally.

That's the night I quit smoking, only to be tested bigly in New Orleans a few days later when Utah played Alabama in the Sugar Bowl. Nearly didn't make it.

I had taken up smoking in the first place in part to be a rebel of sorts. Everyone smoked back then, but I never saw myself as following a pack—I was being a rebel. Our role models were our fathers, uncles, cousins and brothers who fought in World War II, Korea and Vietnam—nearly all smokers. Our cultural icons smoked, including everyone from the Beatles to seemingly every popular actor and actress, from Ronald Reagan all the way down to Fred Flintstone. They were rebels, too, in my view.

So, when I could no longer smoke at the bar while plugging quarters into trivia machines and slamming tequilas—and instead was told that if I wanted to smoke that I'd have to go outside—I drew the line. Nope. They can't tell me what to do, so I quit.

When the puffers went outside, I did, too, and kept on going. A nice benefit of not smoking also meant not having bar tabs, because it soon became apparent that although I annually spent a small fortune in bars, I wasn't really there to drink but, rather, to smoke.

I wasn't a home smoker. I lit up in clubs. On that 2008 New Year's Eve, private clubs turned in their ashtrays. What they got in return was to allow consumers into their establishments without a private club membership. That new world was begat after decades of squabble between restaurants, clubs, consumers, sinners and saints that was finally resolved when Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. just flat out got it done.

Psst—it was the revenue begat of the tourism industry that caused the sniggling parties to cave—not any fake concern about my health or my passage to a better spot in the hereafter. The "second-hand smoke is deadly" team can also be credited, but that was not a strong local movement, because after all, "free agency" and all that.

It was all for good, though. It's only anecdotal but I'd guess the tourist industry, the Utah liquor industry and tens of thousands of lungs and hearts are better off because Huntsman accomplished what no one else could.

Not having a place to smoke made quitting easier for me. I only mention that because I have a sense that many smokers (whose habit is, I think, far cooler than vaping) are no different than I was. I fully resented being told what to do. Not smoking is hard enough without every piously perfumed nagger out there doing more harm than good by constantly nagging.

By now you may be wondering, what's going on here? A Private Eye column without a ding at Mike Lee? Yeah, for this week at least.

Despite the pitiable insurrectionist and U.S. Constitution abuser that he is, I feel a certain kinship to Mike Lee. Like smokers such as I once was—no matter how much he is condemned for being an ass, he's learned to embrace being one. Happy New Year.

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