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No Smoking, Please
A fictional tale of two brothers and their efforts to curtail two different forms of unwelcome conduct.

John and Jim were brothers. When they were young they fought with each other from time to time, as brothers do, but they also helped each other through some difficult times. As they matured, and set off on different careers, they continued to rely on each other for support, sympathy, and solid advice.

John, the older of the two, was an excellent student, with clear and unswerving goals. By the time he was a teenager, he had decided what he wanted to do with his life. He attended the appropriate schools, won academic honors, earned the chance for further study abroad, accumulated two advanced degrees, plunged into his chosen work, and began working his way up the ladder, securing promotions every few years.

But it is not John who concerns us here; we will come back to him later in our story. For now the focus is on Jim, who had more trouble finding his niche in the working world. Jim struggled through school, and had trouble choosing a career. For several years he waited on tables, earning just enough money to support himself. Finally he married, settled down, and began to shoulder his responsibilities as the head of a young family. He did not leave the food industry, but became manager of a small restaurant. He enjoyed that job, and did it well; the restaurant was popular and profitable, and as his work was recognized, his income steadily rose. Eventually, prodded by his brother John, he took a lease on a vacant piece of property in a fashionable part of town, and opened a restaurant of his own. Within months “Chez Jim” was the most popular dining establishment in the city.

Smoke signals
But Jim had a problem. Some of his regular patrons enjoyed a cigarette as they waited for their orders to arrive; others preferred a cigar along with their post-prandial coffee. But other diners objected to the smell of the tobacco smoke; they said that it ruined their own enjoyment of the food. The problem could not be solved by separating the smokers from the non-smokers; there was only a single dining room. Chez Jim was a small, intimate place; that was part of its charm.

Never a decisive man, Jim avoided responding to the complaints he was hearing, hoping that the smokers and non-smokers would come to some informal agreement. But instead the complaints grew louder and more frequent. When Jim continued to temporize, a few militant non-smokers took it upon themselves to admonish the smokers. There were angry confrontations. Regular patrons became uncomfortable, and began dining elsewhere. Jim belatedly realized that he would have to take action. So one Friday night, patrons entering Chez Jim saw a prominent new sign in the vestibule: “No Smoking.”

That very evening, one of Jim’s most faithful patrons lit up a cigar after finishing his main course. Jim, observing the scene from his office beside the kitchen, instructed the waiter not to say anything. The man was probably acting from sheer habit, he said; probably he would realize his error, and put out the cigar. But he did not. And another diner, noticing that no one on the restaurant staff had stopped the cigar-smoker, lit up his own cigarette.

Within a few days, the air of Chez Jim was thick with tobacco smoke again, and the complaints were louder than ever. So Jim took another step. He had new menus printed, with a message from management displayed in large block letters across the bottom: “Thank you for not smoking.”

A call for help
Still the cigar-loving patron did not take Jim’s hint. He continued to dine at the restaurant almost every night, often bringing a party of friends, and always enjoying a smoke. Others—taking their own cues from the man who was always escorted to the best table in the room—also ignored the “no-smoking” messages. 

Jim did not want to embarrass his best client, so he decided not to speak to the man directly. Instead he removed the ashtrays and matches from the tables, bought a more prominent sign for the vestibule, and increased the size of the type for the no-smoking message on the menu. But nothing changed. 

Naturally, the complaints by non-smokers continued. One clean-air crusader took Jim to task, in front of the other diners, for his unwillingness to act decisively. When Jim protested that he had tried to enunciate a clear no-smoking policy, this obstreperous patron shouted: “You say all the right things. But you’re not serious about the policy!” 

Jim was distraught. How could he avoid a nasty scene? How could he keep all his regular customers happy? How could he save his business? Unable to find a solution, he realized that in such times of crisis, he could always rely on the advice of his brother John. 

Oh, did I forget to tell you? John had been ordained as a Catholic priest, and now, after a series of promotions, he was the bishop of his own diocese. So Jim knew that John had some experience in handling problems similar to his own. He called his brother, and asked, “How do you convince people that you’re serious when you say that Catholics can’t support legal abortion?” 

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