Consider these three situations:

1) You’re just outside the back entrance of Parthenon (you know, the mirage-inducing one that lets you see people eating, but won’t actually let you near a tasty gyro) on your way to The Plaza. From across the street you can see a group of your friends — beers in hands — through the quickly-filling bar’s front window.

All of the sudden, out of the corner of your eye you spot a group of ruffians headed up the street with the unmistakable look of Point-craving in their eyes. They’re still a half block away though; if you scuttle across the street you can beat them to the front door and avoid a line. You aren’t at a crosswalk and jaywalking is certainly against the law, but if you delay you may have to wait in line for 20 minutes …

2) You’re driving home from Taco Bell and by the minute it’s becoming clearer and clearer that the fourth bean burrito might have been a mistake. Your stomach just moved from the “growling” stage to the “falling” stage. Disaster is close, but home is only a few blocks.

The signal up the street switches to yellow. You’re going 30 miles per hour (exactly the speed limit). If you push it to 35, you’re sure you can slide through the light. Speeding and going through a yellow-turning-to-red are both illegal, but getting your car’s interior cleaned may turn out to be more expensive than an improbable ticket …

3) It’s your best buddy’s 21st birthday and he wants to party. As anyone coming of age would, he has planned out a strategic strike on a number of Madison bars. All of your favorite spots — The Gritty, Brats, Monday’s, Amy’s, The Irish Pub and The Plaza — are on the list.

But the fact is you are still a few months from your 21st. You have your older sibling’s expired ID (with a picture that looks remarkably like you) and, in all honesty, you’ve been drinking for a good four years now. Drinking under age and using the ID to join the party are both illegal, but missing an event like this may be even more offensive …

So what do you do? Our guess: you cross, you smash the gas and you tag along– as anyone would. Well, jaywalking, driving five miles over the speed limit and underage drinking; there’s a kindred spirit sauntering into town July 1. Meet the latest law written to be broken: bar-smoking.

Here’s the situation:

You finally make it into Bullfeathers after waiting in a line 50-drunkards-deep. You fight the crowd to the bar and get you and yours a pitcher for the effort. A couple of drinks later, that familiar craving hits.

But it’s just getting to the most popular point in the night. If you walk outside you’re sacrificing your seat, your rights to the pitcher and the 30 minutes of your life it will take to wait in line again. Plus it’s cold out.

Here’s our advice: light up; drag deep; and don’t even worry about the hand of the man dropping down on you. Because it won’t.

The Madison Police Department has already revealed its reluctance to waste valuable manpower on the enforcement of such a ridiculous law. Many bar owners have followed suit (with one even running for City Council with a platform of overturning the ban). If the owners of bars and the Madison Police Department are not going to come after you for your lawlessness, exactly who is?

Don’t take this the wrong way. This board is not, by any stretch of rhetoric, suggesting civil disobedience. That would be a misreading of what civil disobedience is — in function. Smoke-ins, rallies and letters to the City Council are unmerited. But, at this point, it’s not clear that anyone thinks this is going to become an enforceable law. So we see very little reason for the people of Madison to pretend it is.