Oklahoma restaurants face a fast-approaching deadline of March 1 to either go smoke-free or install complex ventilation systems away from non-smokers.

The Sapulpa Herald reports that several area Route 66 restaurants, including the former Rivett’s Route 66 Cafe and Freddie’s Barbecue and Steak House, will be affected.

Ed “Tex” Slyman of Freddie’s added a ventilated smoking room for $67,000.

Slyman, a nonsmoker, said if Freddie’s was located in south Tulsa he’d go nonsmoking. However, many of his clientele driving Route 66 are smokers.

“I feel like I’ve positioned Freddie’s to accommodate all of our customers,� he said. “The law will not affect us one penny, but what will happen to those little coffee shops?�

Al and Susan Shamburg, the new owners of Rivett’s, don’t have the capital to build something as elaborate as Freddie’s smoking room.

“We don’t want to lose our regular customers, but we want to comply with the laws, too,� Shamburg said.

“We don’t smoke,� he said. “If it wasn’t offensive to our customers, we’d have gone nonsmoking when we took over, but we don’t want to offend our customer base.�

He said many of his customers have been coming for years to smoke while they dine. He would like to provide them with a special vented room, but the cost would require money he doesn’t have.

To comply with the nonsmoking law, he may be able to add another wall in the back dining area, but the extensive ventilation system may be too much to financially bare.

Another idea would be to put benches and tables outside for the smoking patrons, but that may interfere with city ordinances.

Either way, it’s an issue Shamburg will have to work hard to satisfy both his customers and the law.

Meanwhile, the VFW Post 1320 is considering shutting down its restaurant operations and becoming strictly a bar because so many of its customers smoke.

I think there will be a short-lived uproar once the non-smoking rules go into effect. After that, things will calm down and most of these restaurants will have even more business because the less-smokey atmosphere will be more pleasant for diners.

The smoke-filled Route 66 diner is something that many, including Route 66ers, look at with some nostalgia. But once the smoke is gone, I doubt that many will truly miss it.

Nick Clooney’s second part of his story for the Cincinnati Post of driving west on Route 66 … er, I-40, is online. Again, there’s not much of interest except for his conversation with a tourism worker in Needles, Calif. Nick even managed to miss seeing any of the wildfires plaguing Oklahoma.