Adam Soroka began smoking cigarettes at age 17 and stayed the course for a decade or so. One day, he bought a pipe from Cavalier Pipe & Tobacco and “found that I liked it immensely,” he says.
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“The tobacco that is used for rolling cigarettes for machine-rolled cigarettes—with the exception of dip—is the lowest grade of all tobaccos,” says Soroka. “The cheapest, the worst grown, the worst handled…” He’s been on the pipe since.
The smoking ban isn’t much of a deterrent for Soroka, who works for the UVA Library and may occasionally be spotted puffing outside of Alderman Library. He smokes most frequently at home. We were introduced at Blue Moon Diner on the day the statewide smoking ban went into effect; I watched him pull a bag from his coat pocket and carefully nudge tobacco from CVille Smoke Shop into the bowl of his pipe, then step outside.
“That sort of passersby trade is where I no longer go out as much,” says Soroka a few weeks later. “I’m coming home, pass by the diner, and say, ‘I could stop in for a glass of beer. No, you know, I can’t smoke my pipe in there. I don’t think I will. It’s cheaper to have a glass at home anyway.’”
Here’s what I like about talking about smoking with Soroka: He doesn’t puff while we talk. He doesn’t possess the tics of an addict, and there’s no “bumming a smoke” in the pipe world, although he might share a blend with a kindred spirit. He confesses to spending hours in CVille Smoke Shop, talking with pipe specialist Mike Hines about Hines’ personal blends. He used to occasionally smoke during gigs by Irish band King Golden Banshee at Fellini’s No. 9, but hasn’t attended shows since the ban passed because it’s “not a special occasion.”
“That’s an ongoing enjoyment that I had. And it’s less enjoyable now…I can no longer sit there, smoke my pipe, read a Flann O’Brien novel and have a glass of whiskey,” says Soroka.
Before we end our chat, Soroka asks if I’d like his thoughts on the ban, and I tell him yes. Other than arguments for employee health (“That’s a legitimate argument, and I see it.”) Soroka says he finds every other argument for enforcing a statewide smoking ban “utterly specious.”
“Most of them come down to the idea that people should be able to eat whatever they want, whenever they want, under what conditions they like,” he says. “Which is simply not the case.”
“I say that as someone who is very finicky about the kinds of conditions I’ll expose myself to in the pursuit of enjoyment,” Soroka adds a moment later. “A bar can definitely be too smoky for me, and I’m a pipe smoker.”
“In any event, my response to that, of course, is to leave.”
