Smoking in the Boys Room

Last night, on the advice of my new blog acquaintance, Taxi Vignettes, I watched the San Jose Sharks beat the New York Islanders at a bar called The Britannia Arms. Please, gentle reader, before I tell you about the exprience take a moment to click on that link, and briefly take in the bar's Web site designer's idea of what it is to "look" British. Pay especial attention to the Roman centurion holding Poseidon's trident.

Done? Good. So now you can accurately imagine what it feels like to be inside the place. I heard years ago from a friend who visited Japan that the Japanese had appropriated American images of Christmas, such as the Coca-Cola Santa Claus, and that "Christmas" had become a popular holiday there. Except they hadn't quite understood the symbolism. My friend reported having seen a figure of Santa Claus in a store window, nailed to a crucifix, and a manger scene in which Victorian skaters circled Jesus and Mary.

That's what the Britannia Arms reminded me of.

But though amusing, the decor was irrelevant, at least to me, because I'd come wanting a hockey game, not a pint of Boddingtons.

"What can I get you?" the bartender asked. I hadn't yet taken a seat at the bar, and wasn't sure whether I would.

"I hear this is a hockey bar," I said, nodding toward the television screens behind the bar. They were all tuned to a baseball game. Vignette had told me the bar was owned by Owen Nolan. Who hails from the U.K., not incidentally. Clearly he's an absentee owner.

You may recall, Gentle Reader, that when I'm in a bar I like to sit at the bar, especially when it's my first visit and I'm alone. There were three unattractive, overweight, slightly greasy looking men sitting dead centre of the bar. It wasn't clear whether they were watching the baseball game, and in any event they didn't require three screens to do it.

But the bartender failed to take my meaning. "The hockey game's on the big screen at the back," he said, and indeed it was. High up on the wall, close to the 40' ceiling, a screen was suspended, and the hockey game was indeed visible, though not audible. There was no one in that section of the bar.

"You couldn't put it on one of those screens?" I asked, politely, again indicating the three behind him.

"Nope. They're watching it," he replied, indicating Larry, Curly, and Mo. He wouldn't have given a fig if I'd walked out the door then, and I considered doing exactly that but I wanted to watch the game, and it had already started, and I didn't know where else to go that would be any better. So I walked up and down the airplane hangar-sized room, searching for a listening spot. Seven screens were showing a baseball game: the large one on the front wall, a football game; and on one of the smaller ones — and I wish I were kidding, Gentle Reader — a beach volleyball game from Santa Barbara.

I find a table along the wall in viewing distance of the 36" screen suspended on the wall high above the heads of the greasy men. High enough so that I need not look directly at Curly, whose single long, grey braid has left a mark on the back of his jacket. I never saw their faces, but I like to imagine they had a few missing teeth between them.

From my vantage point I can hear the game, if I lean forward a little and concentrate on blocking out the cheers from the screen that's showing the beach volleyball game. At the table in front of me are three pairs of teenagers on a group date. They appear to have chosen that table because it's the best one from which to watch the game. And they are watching the game, god bless their little hearts.

The menu at the Britannia Arms, to its credit, includes a long list of British Ales, but I'm a lager girl myself, preferring, in order, Wahrsteiner, Dab, and Beck's. I order a Gordon Biersch and some potato skins, just to see.

At The Banknote, I got to know Andrew and Sid and Lulu because I sat at the bar. You don't meet people sitting alone at a table. So I watch the game and, during the commercials, I study the other patrons. I am not the only woman in the bar; the table in front of the teenagers is occupied by a group of three women, two of whom have grey hair. Four or five men now sit at the far end of the bar, as though trying to place as much distance as possible between themselves and Larry, Curly, and Mo, who have begun singing the na-na-na-na hey-hey-hey goodbye song . The baseball game must be over. This is good; maybe those fat slobs will leave and I can sit at the bar.

The girls get up en masse and retire in the direction of the abandoned big screen, presumably in search of the ladies' room. But fifteen minutes go by, the second period ends, and they haven't returned. Then the boys rise from their table, one of them holding a purse, and they head to the back as well. That's when I ask the waitress, "Is there a patio out there?"

"Yes, the patio's open," she replies, most helpfully.

"Is the hockey game on out there?"

"Oh yes," she chirps.

"If I go out there, will you still be able to serve me, or should I settle up with you now?"

"I can serve you out there. You can go whenever you want, and you can take your beer with you."

I was beginning to warm up to the place. I had one last question, but as it was a matter of some delicacy, I crooked my finger so she'd come closer.

"And, um, can I, uh, smoke out there?" I say the word "smoke" in a whisper. This is California, after all. I'm lucky I can smoke on my own patio.

Just before I left Toronto, they passed a new city by-law banning smoking in any outdoor area that was in any way covered, even if it is only by an awning. So imagine my surprise to find the patio out back of the Britannia Arms covered by a roof, installed with heat lamps, and containing another bar complete with bar stools and two television screens, both of which are showing the hockey game.

Still, I am hesitant. I call my waitress over. "Can we smoke... anywhere out here?" I ask. Surely there were some restrictions. Only in the far corner, say, or not at the bar. This is California; they have the strictest anti-smoking rules anywhere in the country, I thought.

The waitress smiles patiently at me; her attitude is that of a parent encouraging a small child at potty training. "Yes," she repeats, "anywhere out here."

I sit at a bar table, not at the bar, as a courtesy to my waitress. Behind the patio bar is a Guinness poster, a hockey stick, a lacrosse stick, and — wait for it — a canoe paddle painted blue and decorated with the Labatt Blue logo. I am homesick. There are even two or three boys wearing baseball caps out here.

The game is over. The Sharks beat the Islanders 2-0. They announce the game's three stars and there's a short post-game show. The patio begins to fill up with a much younger crowd, dressed for clubbing. The gang of 20-somethings at the table behind me are singing and tapping on the glass table. And a young man in a teal on white Nolan #11 jersey and a baseball cap, who'd been standing at the bar through the last half of the third period, now walks over to my table and asks, "Are you Postmodern Sass?"