Time warp

While in Milwaukee, Wis., last week attending the National Association of College & University Food Services conference, I stepped away for a short time, opting for lunch one afternoon at a restaurant across the street from my hotel. When I did so, I stepped into a time warp of sorts, in more ways than one.

I ate at George Webb’s, a chain that has 38 locations in Wisconsin, 17 in Milwaukee. My parents would have referred to the restaurant as a luncheonette, a diner-type space of the kind you rarely see in large cities any more. The center of the restaurant was taken up with a short, curved counter with about eight seats abutting the kitchen, with booths and tables providing seating for another 30 or so customers.

The restaurant is open around the clock, with a diner-type menu reflective of a Denny’s. I sat at the counter with my newspaper and ordered a burger and coffee; I wasn’t there so much for the food as I was for a change of pace and, I admit, a modicum of curiosity. (Besides, the menu didn’t really lend itself to healthy fare.)

I was drinking my coffee, awaiting my burger, when an unexpected, yet unmistakable, odor wafted over to me. I glanced to my right and my fear was confirmed: the gentleman two seats away was smoking a cigarette.

My first thought was to raise the alarm, but then I surveyed my surroundings. I noticed three things: he was not alone, there was an ashtray positioned just to his left, and there was a large sign hanging from the ceiling that read, “Please refrain from smoking on Saturdays and Sundays from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m.”

Milwaukee is one of those cities that will be dragged, kicking and screaming apparently, into the no-smoking era next year when a statewide smoking ban is effected. On the George Webb Web site, it indicates that only three of the 17 locations in Milwaukee are smoke-free. While I am by no means a civil libertarian, I do have problems occasionally with people in government trying to dictate how we live our lives. Should the government, for example, have the right to tell us what we should eat? I understand the arguments about the rising cost of healthcare, but is government intervention really going to make us a slimmer nation?

However, the smoking ban is something I have always been in favor of, because I have never been a smoker and second-hand smoke does worry me, healthwise. The puffs of tobacco that blew my way in the George Webb restaurant were a smelly reminder that, on occasion, government intervention can serve a useful purpose.