Eric Hartley:Smoking ban outrage turns into whimper

There was something a bit odd about almost all the sweaty smokers I talked to outside Annapolis bars on one of those brutally hot evenings this week: They wouldn't give me their names.

"Nobody likes to admit they're a smoker," one explained as he puffed outside Rams Head Tavern. (In an amusing sign of how socially unacceptable tobacco has become, he then compared giving me his name with publicly admitting he smoked marijuana.)

I wanted to know how Maryland's smoking ban was working out four months in, and I figured those who'd venture outside to smoke in 97-degree heat would have strong feelings on...