Photo by George Lauby Sheryl Davis enjoys a smoke outside the Rail Bar.

Photo by George Lauby Amanda Kaehler, at left, and Amy Merritt welcome customers to the beer garden at Kelsey's Place.

Photo by Ben Schwartz The House Bar beer garden looks out on E. Fourth, so patrons can watch the world go by as they relax and smoke.

Photo by Ben Schwartz Beer garden at The Alamo

Photo by George Lauby A cup holder stands at the end of the horseshoe court at Kelsey's beer garden.

When a statewide smoking ban on smoking took effect June 1, bar owners needed someplace to accommodate their customers who smoke.

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The answer – beer gardens.

Beer gardens are a time-honored tradition. They began in Europe and are now revered in major international cities for the mixture of frivolity and the great outdoors.

Now they are booming in North Platte.

Beer gardens were already up and going in a few North Platte bars. It’s a matter of keeping the bar business vibrant as well as serving the public, owners say.

Construction is underway for beer gardens at the Alamo Bar and the Hub Bar. The North Platte city council approved both applications July 10.

Beer gardens are built and operating at Shooters, The House, The Platte, The Rail, The Anchor Inn near Lake Maloney and the Moose Lodge.

And more bar owners are thinking about it.

The new state law forbids smoking in every building that the public can access, except designated motel rooms, tobacco shops and home-based businesses.

The fine is $100 for the first offense and $100-500 for subsequent offenses.

But smoking outdoors is still allowed.

After three years of intensive debate, the Legislature passed the smoking ban in February 2008 by a 34-14 vote, and set the implementation date of June 1, 2009.

Bar owners are adding furniture, fences and features such as horseshoe courts, as well as awnings to the exteriors of their buildings,, and talking about how they might heat the gardens this winter. Temporary walls and radiant heaters are possibilities.

But right now, accommodating smokers is job one.

“We want to get our business back,” said bartender Becky Haldorsen.

The Rail, 520 N. Jeffers

At the Rail Bar at the Depot restaurant, owner Dave McNew cut a new doorway with an interior sloping walkway to connect to the beer garden in the west parking lot.

The Rail Bar is growing in popularity after renovations in recent months. Business dipped a little but not consistently in June when the smoking ban started, McNew said.

The Rail’s garden opens at 5 p.m. It gets nice and shady around 8 p.m., said Sheryl Davis as she enjoyed a cigarette and a drink after work.

McNew said an awning over the beer garden is under discussion.

More people are talking about quitting altogether, Davis said.

“A lotta people are trying to quit smoking,” Davis said. “I’m thinking about it. I’ve gone from two packs a day to one.”

Davis said it’s not as much fun going to a bar now that she can’t smoke inside.

“I used to visit with friends, smoke and shoot pool. I can’t do all that anymore,” she said.

McNew said an awning over the beer garden is under discussion.

The Hub, 702 N. Jeffers

At the Hub Bar, the new beer garden will probably be called “Smokers Alley,” head bartender Becky Haldorsen said.

The garden is out back between the walls of two-story buildings, giving it a big-city feel. The brick walls offer shade and coolness, Haldorsen said.

It could open in a couple weeks if rains don’t delay construction of the floor and fence.

“It will give smokers a place to go,” she said. “People like to come in, have some beer, smoke cigarettes.

Construction workers used to come in and stay for hours at the Hub, but now, if they come in, they have a couple of beers and leave.

“We’ve lost half our business,” Haldorsen said.

At 60 years old, the Hub Bar is the oldest North Platte bar that is still in its original building. Halderson has tended bar there 20 years.

“We’d like to keep it,” she said.

She said smokers are grumbling about the new no-smoking law. Some Hub customers don’t smoke at home – they come to the bar to do that, Halderson said.

“They say it’s not fair, that it should be up the establishment,” she said. “They just don’t think it’s right. They say our rights are getting taken away more all the time. I hear that a lot.”

Kelsey’s, 219 Rodeo Road

At Kelsey’s, the beer garden opened in mid-May, a couple weeks before the no-smoking law took effect.

To make the tables, owners Mary and Tom Kelsey bought big tree stumps from Charlie Weaver of Wellfleet. They won’t tip or break. A hole drilled into the top supports a shade umbrella.

Kelsey’s beer garden also sports two horseshoe courts, complete with beer cup holders welded by son-in-law Scott Adkins.

A streetlight lights above the horseshoe courts, which are roped off by a line of beer banner flags.

The game is catching on at the bar, Mary Kelsey said. A tournament is tentatively planned in August.

Since the smoking ban, business might be down slightly at Kelsey’s, but it’s coming back, bartender Bobbi Dehr said.

Dehr is a smoker but personally doesn’t mind the smoking ban at work.

“My eyes don’t start burning around 11 p.m. like they used to,” she said. “My clothes don’t smell like an ashtray.”

Bartender Amy Merritt, another smoker, now smokes less – about half as much — because she can’t light up inside while she’s working.

“I don’t mind it,” she said. “I used to cough a lot more.”

Platte Bar, 119 W. 6th

The Platte Bar already had the infrastructure in place to handle the smoking ban. Owner Teresa Brouillette said the beer garden has been there for more than 20 years, but it’s getting more popular.

“It gets used a lot more now,” she said.

The Platte has a fenced area with a large awning on the north side of the bar that is open year round. For two days during Nebraskaland Days, the beer garden is expanded to include most of the parking lot too.

Brouillette, an ex-smoker, said someone asked her what she was going to do when the ban took effect. She told them, “I’m going to have to buy a pack of cigarettes, because I’ve been smoking for free off of you guys for years.”

She said she would have liked for the smoking ban to include a grandfather clause that allowed bars to decide if they wanted to ban smoking.

“We couldn’t fight it. It was forced on us,” she said.

Brouillette believes the ban has already affected business, particularly during the lunch hour. Customers who can no longer smoke while eating no longer visit the Platte.

She will not be able to accurately judge if the ban has affected nighttime traffic until after summer, she said.

“The true story will come out this winter,” she said. “Summer is a slow time, anyway.”

The Alamo Bar, 610 N. Chestnut

Myron Ward, the owner of the Alamo Bar, echoed that sentiment. He thinks that the smoking ban may affect the number of pool and dart teams that play in leagues this winter.

The Alamo opened their beer garden Monday, July 20. Ward did not rush to build one and is being very careful to be in full compliance with the demands of the liquor commission.

Right now, the Alamo’s garden consists of chain link fencing and some tables and chairs. By the time it is finished, it will be under a canopy and decorated with lights, according to an employee of the bar.

Ward said he applied for a beer garden license because many of his customers were asking for a place where they could enjoy both drinks and cigarettes.

“I’d estimate 98 to 99 percent of my customers smoke,” he said. “I have a few customers who don’t, but they never complained before the ban.”

Ward said he was careful to run the fans inside the bar, so the smoke never became oppressive.

“None of that matters now,” he said.

Ward estimated that between fees and materials he has spent $3,500 to open the beer garden.

“It’s a lot of money,” he said.

The House Bar, 1601 E. Fourth

The management of the House Bar already had on had many of the materials to create their beer garden. Their costs were relatively low, according to Mary Schwager, the manager.

She estimated that the bar spent about $200 putting the garden together.

“We already had the fencing and the tables,” she said.

The House had operated a beer garden during Nebraskaland Days on several occasions, but lately had grown tired of butting heads with the city of North Platte.

“The city was always shutting us down,” Schwager said. “Every time we tried to do something, like a wet tee-shirt contest, we had to close.”

Once the smoking ban went into effect, however, the House applied for an outdoor liquor license and opened the beer garden permanently.

The garden is on the south side of the bar along Fourth St.

“We were originally going to put it in the back of the bar (in the parking lot),” she said. “But it’s worked out really well this way.” Schwager said people can watch the traffic, talk and listen to music.

Shooters, 2221 E. Fourth

Shooter’s boasts a large area on the north side of the bar as a beer garden. There are privacy fences, seating, high tables to stand around, a roofed structure and an outdoor bar that can be opened on busy nights.

There is also a grassy area, a rare feature in the newly evolving beer garden scene, where lawn games can be played.

Brothers Tavern, 215. E. Sixth

Brothers does not yet have a beer garden, though multiple sources confirmed that one is in the works.

An anonymous source at the bar said that it should be up and running in three or four weeks.

“It’s going to be the nicest one in town,” the source said.

This article was first published July 22 in the print edition of the North Platte Bulletin.