On the first day of Boston's new smoking ban, I set out on my own pub crawl, visiting some of the city's best-known smokers' haunts. I figured I'd find widespread revolt and angry bartenders.

Four hours and a full dozen bars later, I came to an opposite conclusion: Not only is the ban largely accepted but people seem genuinely pleased it's finally in place.

Bukowski's in the Back Bay is a dark and narrow bar perched over the Turnpike. Named after the notoriously dissolute beat poet Charles Bukowski, it's an edgy place with loud music and a crowd that fancies itself as hard livin.' If there were any spot whose customers would ignore the new rules, I figured this would be it.

But it's after midnight and the air is clear. Jason is working the bar. He reports no problems and personally is glad it's smoke-free. Even though it's Monday night - the slowest of the week - the tavern is packed.

``Business is better than last night,'' Jason notes, referring to Sunday, when the city's watering holes held smoking send-off parties.

And the same is true everywhere else I visit. In no case is anyone smoking inside. My clothes don't smell; my eyes don't sting. At times it's disconcerting.

Bars like Beacon Hill's Sevens, Allston's Common Ground and downtown's the Littlest Bar once seemed to define themselves by the fog of smoke that greeted customers as they entered. Now, with the haze gone, the lights seem too bright and, as you look around you realize: Most of these places could use a new paint job.

Moreover, workers and customers seem happy with the new rules.

Amber, a bartender at TGI Fridays in the Back Bay, delights in the clean air. My waitress at the Sevens is similarly satisfied. The bartender at the Beantown Pub on Tremont Street reports that crowds seem strong for a Monday. Deb Marino and Emily Clark, Suffolk Law students and regular customers at the Beantown, say smoke in the air always left them feeling dirty. John Noberini, at the Sevens, says ``I love it.''

And the reaction of many smokers is surprising. Three puffing cigarettes outside the Beacon Hill Pub initially complain, but then one admits, ``It's good to be able to sit in a bar without all the smoke.''

Her two companions agree and add, not unhappily, that the ban will probably help them cut down their smoking. Many others I speak to echo that observation. Kristin Flanagan, a smoker and seven-year regular at the Common Ground, is resigned to the change. ``Everyone will get used to it,'' she says.

To be sure, not all are thrilled. The bartender at Allston's Silhouette Lounge, an unlit cigarette in her hand, seems frenzied. ``It's horrible,'' she says, ``I miss the smoke.''

The Delux Cafe in the South End posts a provocative sign on its door: ``No smoking in accordance with the fascist regime in City Hall.'' Two smokers outside complain about the city's ``Gestapo tactics''; another in front of the Littlest Bar contends in a brogue that something like this ``would never happen in Ireland'' (actually, it will; beginning next January, Ireland goes smoke-free). Tommy Valley, nursing a beer at the Silhouette, vows, ``From now on, I'll drink at home.''

Nevertheless, these are minority views.

To be sure, there are worries. Some fear business may migrate to towns without a smoking ban. Others, while pleased with the first night's experience, are uncertain about what will happen over the weekend when the crowds are larger. And a few are concerned that smokers walking outside for a quick drag may simply take off, stiffing the bar for their bill.

Yet for all that, Boston seems to have taken to the new ban with surprising ease.

Why? Much of the credit goes to the city's Public Health Commission. In the run-up to the ban, says Director John Auerbach, a team of 11 fanned out to all of the city's 700 bars. They explained the new rules, left behind packages of educational materials and walked bar owners through strategies for handling recalcitrant customers.

When the day came for the ban to go into effect, Auerbach figures bars and restaurants were ready. On top of that, the rules have teeth: Fines of $1,000 and, for repeated violators, the threat of suspending or revoking liquor licenses.

Yet there is another reason for the ban's acceptance. Over the past years, smoking has been prohibited in more and more places - from airplanes to office buildings to conventional restaurants. Meanwhile the number of non-smokers has risen and those who still smoke do so less frequently and with less pleasure and more guilt. The media attention to Boston's smoking ban has made the new rules seem as if they were some sharp break from the past. In truth, they are just the next, inevitable step.

Tom Keane can be reached at tomkeane@tomkeane.com.