[iconoclast]

you shouldn't have to walk through a gauntlet of smokers who are outside having their cigarettes.

I agree.

They should be inside smoking, where smokers had been for the previous several hundred years.

BTW, I don't smoke, neither does my wife. We used to ask for "first available" when there were still smoking sections. Smokers don't bother us as nearly as much as diners that are making so much noise that we can't comfortably converse.

[Terpesman]

(Me, as devil's advocate...)

But those people are allowed to be as loud as they want, they are paying for their meals just like you.