When the government gets tough on silly things like smoking bans, the tough get creative:

On a night when wind chills were expected to reach minus-40 or below, revelers hunkered down for a night of drinking at Barnacle’s Resort, a popular winter redoubt for ice fishermen and snowmobilers on the north shore of Lake Mille Lacs.

Helmets and jackets were stuffed everywhere. A plastic kiddie pool full of crushed ice held red meat, which was raffled off throughout the night. Two tables of Texas Hold ’Em were full, and someone was telling the story of the night Minnesota Vikings fullback Jim Kleinsasser sat there - right there - in that very stool. Smoke wafted through the bar.

Wait ... smoke? As in cigarettes?

On this Saturday night, and every Saturday night going forward until someone tells them to stop, the owners at Barnacle’s are allowing their customers to light up. It’s not so much an act of civil disobedience against the statewide smoking ban as it is exploiting an exception that allows smoking as part of a theatrical production.

You see, all those people drinking and smoking and laughing and telling the government to mind its own business? They’re really actors.

“You are looking at a stage. You are looking at a playhouse,” said Mark Benjamin, who cooked up the idea. “Those are not cigarettes - those are props.”

We are told that we live in a free country, yet all around this country citizens who want to smoke and property owners who want to let them smoke are not free to make up their own mind about smoking.

Somehow, I don’t think this is what the founders intended when they spoke of liberty and the pursuit of happiness.