Stephanie Klein-Davis | The Roanoke Times

Tim Allbaugh, 57, of Roanoke enjoys a cigarette at Martin's Downtown Bar & Grill while sitting at the bar Thursday night with a friend and listening to the band Grass Monkey.

Stephanie Klein-Davis | The Roanoke Times

Barbara Kashino, 25, of Roanoke enjoys a cigarette at the bar at Martin's Downtown Bar & Grill on Thursday night with Steve Hobbs, 30, also of Roanoke.

Jared Soares| The Roanoke Times

Community Inn manager Mont Morrow pours a drink Thursday evening. The bar and restaurant is outfitting a smoking room.

Jeanna Duerscherl | The Roanoke Times

Preston Patterson smokes at a table in the back of Community Inn in Grandin Village on Tuesday. The Roanoke bar is one of a few that will have a separate room for smokers once Dec. 1 arrives. On that date, smoking will be banned at all Virginia restaurants unless the establishment has a separately ventilated room for smokers or is a private club.

Sally Simpson has two more months to sit where she feels most comfortable at Community Inn in Roanoke -- the bar.

Perched atop a bar stool at the Grandin Village watering hole on a recent evening, she lifted her cigarette to her lips.

"I'm awfully comfortable sitting at the bar," she said. Hesitating, she added, "I'm going to miss that."

Come Dec. 1, if Simpson wants to smoke, she'll have to sit in a back room at Community Inn that's closed off from the rest of the narrow eatery's booths and bar area.

This year, Virginia will join the growing list of states that ban smoking in restaurants. In Virginia, there will be exceptions for private clubs and restaurants that have structurally separate rooms and separate ventilation systems. Also, restaurants cannot force employees to work in smoking areas without their consent, according to the new law.

Currently, 23 states have laws that ban smoking in restaurants and bars, according to the American Nonsmokers' Rights Foundation.

Some restaurants in the Roanoke and New River valleys, particularly watering holes, are making plans to allow smoking, from converting separate rooms into smoking spaces to creating outdoor patios for patrons to light up outside.

Still, the majority of the region's restaurants will go smoke-free entirely by Dec. 1, if they haven't already. Many do not have separate ventilated spaces, and the cost is too high for restaurateurs to make changes that could start between $12,000 to $15,000 and climb from there, estimates a local construction and design firm.

Plus, business isn't necessarily booming for restaurants, as consumers increasingly cut back on dining out to save money.

The no-smoking legislation, which was signed into law this year, will not change the rules in most of the region's restaurants. Already, 69 percent of restaurants in the Roanoke and New River valleys are smoke-free, including fast-food establishments, according to inspection reports from the Virginia Department of Health. The department will enforce the no-smoking law through restaurant inspections.

This region, however, has a higher percentage of all-smoking establishments, at 12 percent, compared with 8 percent statewide.

Restaurant owners will be fined no more than $25 if they do not comply with the law, and individuals will face the same fine for smoking in a smoke-free area. The American Heart Association has argued that the fine is too low.

Also, a restaurant cannot be shut down for failing to comply with the smoking law, said Gary Hagy, who directs the state health department's food and environmental services division.

The health department still is ironing out other enforcement actions, including work with local law enforcement, Hagy said.

Community Inn, known as CI to its regulars, is among the local bars and restaurants that wants to appease its smoking clientele when Dec. 1 comes. It has been an all-smoking establishment since its early days. Bruce and Juanita Morrow bought the business in 1977.

Friends meet there regularly over beer, cigarettes, pool tables and televised sports. Clouds of smoke hover near the ceiling on many evenings. Smoking and drinking naturally go together for many patrons.

About 90 percent of the Community Inn's customers smoke, according to Mont Morrow, son of owner Bruce Morrow and manager of the establishment. That's why the Morrows are spending several thousand dollars to outfit a small back room for smoking inside the restaurant with three new flat-screen televisions and a few high-top tables and chairs. Soon, crews will install a glass door to block off this space that's already ventilated separately from the rest of the restaurant.

It's likely to get crowded in this cozy back room. But satisfying smoking customers ultimately will be worth the money, Mont Morrow said.

"At least we have some kind of option," he said.

This option isn't financially feasible for many restaurant owners who do not already have separate spaces in their establishments. Four restaurants have discussed with local architecture and design firm Structures Design/Build estimates of the cost and work required to build rooms with ventilation systems to comply with the law.

But at least one restaurant decided against the work because it was too expensive, said Steve Strauss, co-owner of Structures. The others still are considering what to do.

Instead of crafting a smoking room at Martin's Downtown Bar & Grill in Roanoke, Jason Martin, the owner, is making plans to create a small outdoor patio. Martin wants to rope off space to one side of the restaurant's entrance on First Street, where he will place high-top tables in an area for smokers to congregate.

Martin said he doesn't want to disrupt the openness of the restaurant by sectioning off a separate smoking room.

"I hope that what we are doing is reasonable," he said. "It seems reasonable to me."

The Cellar in downtown Blacksburg eventually will add an outdoor patio for smokers but not in time for the Dec. 1 law. Owner Kevin Long said that initially, smoking will be allowed in a downstairs bar that's separately ventilated from the rest of this Main Street restaurant (the upstairs portion has long been a no-smoking zone). Once the patio goes up, Long will make the entire restaurant smoke-free, for "the reasons that I guess are being stated by health officials and the surgeon general," he said, without discussing other specifics.

Other local bars and restaurants still are pondering whether it's worth the money to make special accommodations for smoking customers.

Russell Barton, co-owner of Little Chef Restaurant on Williamson Road in Roanoke, said he may consider installing a ventilation system to convert a side room of the restaurant into a smoking enclave. First, though, he's waiting to see how the smoke-free law affects sales. Half of Little Chef's customers smoke, he said.

Barton said his restaurant cannot afford to make drastic changes. Sales already are down 25 percent because of the economy, he said. A construction firm told Barton that installing the necessary equipment would cost $15,000 to $18,000.

One concern lingers among restaurant owners as they make plans to repaint walls, mop and do other extensive cleaning to ready their smoking areas to become smoke-free.

Some, such as Richard Macher, president of the Macado's restaurant chain, said he fears that smokers will disrupt the outdoor dining atmosphere, because they will linger outside.

Macher recently opened a smoke-free Macado's in Bristol.

"Those outside decks are full all of the time with smokers," he said.

Going smoke-free is a difficult balancing act for restaurants, Macher said, but "from a positive point of view, everybody's in the same boat."

Four of his 16 Macado's are smoke-free.

Chip Moore, owner of the Brambleton Deli, doesn't plan to have an outdoor patio where smokers stand around while others are dining. He said he'll require smoking patrons to light up in an outside area in the back of his Roanoke County bar and restaurant. Smoking will not be allowed in the outdoor patio near the restaurant's front door unless a patron is sitting down while enjoying a cigarette.

Increased policing of smoking indoors and outdoors is a concern for Perry Keaton, who does not smoke but enjoys dining with friends who do. While drinking with a group from a local literary society one evening at the Community Inn, Keaton said he fears that eventually smoking outside restaurants will be banned, too.

"It'll affect where we can go to eat," he said.

Not all people who smoke are opposed to laws that ban smoking. If Jody McKnight wants to light a cigarette, she said she'll head outside or into the back room at Community Inn, where she recently chatted with other regulars at the bar.

"It's an ugly habit," she said. "I've never stuck up for smoking."