The best way to get away with cheating isn't to avoid getting caught... it's to technically not do anything wrong, and still get all the rewards. That's where you find the line between lawbreakers and those who simply think outside the box... and that line is very thin indeed.

6 Bar Declares Everyone to be Actors to Circumvent Smoking Ban

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Back in 2007, Minnesota followed a national trend by passing an anti-smoking law that banned smoking in pretty much every public building, including bars. Unfortunately, that was bad news for the bars, because if you're going to get good and drunk to fight off the depression manual labor and seasonal affective disorder brings, you want to get your smoke on, too. Nobody wants to go stand outside to smoke, since in Minnesota it gets cold enough at night that neurons stick open and thoughts freeze in your head. So, that winter, the customers stayed home.



"...or, we could get stoned and play Xbox."

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The good owners of the Barnacles Bar were determined to find a loophole that would let their nicotine-addicted clientele feed their deadly vice in peace. They found it:

There was a line in the law that said if you were an actor in a play, and your character smoked, then you'd get a pass. You know, like if you were doing a live stage show of the X-Files and you were playing the main bad guy. Thus, the owners of the bar declared that they were staging a continuous live performance and that everyone in the bar was an actor.



"Now can I fucking smoke?"

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The thing was, the law didn't bother to specify what was meant by "stage performances," and really, how do you argue? So what if they didn't have a script--there is such a thing as improv. So what if they weren't getting paid--the law didn't say only professional actors counted. So, you enter Barnacles on a Saturday night, and then see that the staff are in costume and that you have become a performer in their "Theater Night." Sure, you don't have any lines and you're probably just playing "Guy Drinking To Forget His Job #5," but, hey, you need to smoke to get into character.