MINNEAPOLIS, February 25, 2008—Thomas Kottke, M.,D., a member of the MMA's Public Health and Preventive  Medicine Committee, took issue in a newspaper commentary Monday with the "smoking theater" gimmick some taverns are mounting to get around the law prohibiting secondhand smoke in the workplace.

"Aristotle defined dramatic tragedies as serious stories in which someone experiences a reversal of fortune due to a tragic mistake," wrote Kottke in a Pioneer Press commentary dubbed "The Angina Monologues."

"Bar owners staging fake theatrical productions to avoid protecting their workers and patrons from the lethal chemicals in secondhand smoke are making just such a tragic mistake," he said. 

Kottke lamented the wit of one of the production titles: "The Tobacco Monologues."

"Funny, right? Importing airborne carcinogens and toxins is just hilarious," Kottke said.

Kottke explained that physicians know a thing or two about actual tragedies. Doctors see whole families suffering from heart disease caused and aggravated by secondhand tobacco smoke. Actual tragedies, Kottke said, are about misery.

Full text of Kottke's Pioneer Press commentary.