Source: Washington Post Author: Sandhya Somashekhar It was a gentlemen's protest: Scores of cigar-smokers filed into an upscale steakhouse in Reston on Monday night to light up their stogies over cocktails and beef Wellington and lament that the smoking police had finally come to, of all places, Virginia. Four hundred years after John Rolfe planted the nation's first commercial tobacco in Virginia, and decades after state leaders paid homage to the crop by carving its leaves into the ceiling of the old state Senate chamber, smoking officially becomes illegal Tuesday in the state's 17,500 bars and restaurants. Although the suit-and-tie crowd at Morton's exuded a sort of "Mad Men" cool, it wasn't entirely hard to see why some might have been glad this day has finally come. A fragrant, heavy haze rose as 150 regulars worked their way through the four cigars included with a meal organized as a last hurrah for Virginia smokers. "I've always said, if there's a state that would never pass a smoking ban, it's Virginia," said Manassas resident Ed Bennett, leaning on the polished wooden bar with a cocktail cigar in his right hand. "I lost a lot of bets on that one." Morton's wasn't the only restaurant marking the occasion with a bit of celebratory nostalgia. At Jimmy's Old Town Tavern in Herndon, a Camel rep handed out free cigarettes, and customers were treated to an airing of an old Winston TV ad featuring Fred and Barney from "The Flintstones." Owner Jimmy Cirrito sold [...]