STEPHANIE KLEIN-DAVIS The Roanoke Times

Alphonso "Poochie" Preston, 56, of Roanoke enjoys an Opus X cigar with friends Monday night at the bar at Frankie Rowland's restaurant on Jefferson Street. "It's like we're losing a fraternity," Preston said of Virginia's smoking ban, which takes effect today.

Photos by STEPHANIE KLEIN-DAVIS The Roanoke Times

Myles Wallace, 33 (from left), Karen Ayyildiz, 36, Kelsey Williams, 27, Ellie Augustine, 25, and Ted Snyder, 28, all of Roanoke, enjoy a smoke at the Community Inn on Grandin Road on Monday night, the last night before the official smoking ban law goes into effect.

Kelsey Williams, 27 (left), and Christi Davis, 29, of Roanoke smoke with a group of friends at the Community Inn, which will have a separate room for smokers.

UPDATE, Dec. 1:: Breakfast at smoker-friendly Bedford Restaurant

Smoking at the bar with friends equals freedom. Just ask one of the guys clutching their cigars at a steakhouse on the last night that puffing tobacco was allowed in most Virginia restaurants.

"Banning smoking in restaurants is communism," said Gordon Middlekauff, a 46-year-old dragging off a Don Pepin. "Our forefathers fought for us to be able to make the decisions that we want, and to smoke where we want."

Or talk to friends sipping beer at a neighborhood bar on Grandin Road in Roanoke, and Travis Powell, a 29-year-old in a short-sleeve plaid shirt, will tell you this:

"This is a huge injustice to the way America was built," Powell said. "My grandfather was a tobacco farmer in Franklin County. I thought for sure Virginia would be the last state where something like this would happen."

At Frankie Rowland's, the downtown Roanoke restaurant where a shot of whiskey can cost $15, and Community Inn, the neighborhood bar across town where a glass of beer is $3, people voiced the same resignation and indignation in their last hoorah of smoking at the bar. With some exceptions, a state law going into effect today will require most restaurants to go entirely smoke-free.

The ban will decidedly change the characters of those two establishments. At Frankie Rowland's, the smokers say the bar will be empty once no one is allowed to smoke there. At Community Inn, one man joked that as of today all patrons would cram into a room for smokers recently furbished in the back.

Regulars at both places called for a smoke-in or a smoke-out on Monday. A recurring argument was that government should not infringe on a business owner's right to choose whether the restaurant is for smokers.

The government's argument that smoke is harmful to people who inhale it secondhand? That's questionable, said Glynn Loope, executive director of Cigar Rights of America, and a regular at Frankie Rowland's.

"The free market is already taking care of this," Loope said, citing Virginia Department of Health reports that 69 percent of restaurants in the Roanoke and New River valleys already are smoke-free.

Huddled around Rowland's wood-faced bar were well-coiffed businessmen in tailored suits, and their conversations said it all.

Bill Austin, 52, smoking an Ashton VSG: "This is almost like a wake. We're losing a friend who died, because we won't be able to come back here and smoke."

Alphonso "Poochie" Preston, 56, smoking an Opus X: "Yeah, it's like we're losing a fraternity. You come here with a problem, or want to talk about religion, politics, sports. ... You can get anything sorted out here."

Two miles away at the Community Inn, Powell spoke wistfully about the years he and his friends have met for a drink and a cigarette after they get off work.

"It's the routine," he said. "You get off work, get a beer and smoke a cigarette."

After today, he and his friends will be relegated to smoking outside or in the back room.