Star Profile Willy Durkins, David Harris bar owners
By John Temple Ligon
Temple@TheColumbiaStar.com

Following a national trend, Columbia City Council is trying to limit local exposure to second-hand smoke. Willy Durkins of Durkins, 2001 Greene Street, next to Mr. Friendly's, and David Harris of NightCaps, 2722 Devine Street, facing the fire station, agree, but they don't want to lose customers either. The two know their customers a whole lot more than city council. Each has been in the bar business for about 20 years.

Durkins was born in Cleveland, Ohio, but he grew up in Jamestown, New York, where his father was in the business of selling large trucks. After making his high school teams in football, basketball, and baseball, Durkins still found time for ice hockey.

After two years in Jamestown Community College, Durkins transferred to USC and a job at Yesterday's in Five Points. He moved on to Beau's on Assembly Street, and in 1985, he took a job at Shannon's, a bar farther down Assembly, near Rosewood Drive.

Durkins bought into Shannon's, closed Shannon's and opened Sneaker's, which became Durkins.

Durkins and his wife, owner of 7 Doors Salon above Hampton Street Vineyard, are moving into 1520 Main Street, the new residences facing the Columbia Museum of Art.

Harris was born and reared in Greenville, where he made the football and golf teams at Wade Hampton High School. His father was a banker, and his mother picked stocks for the long term.

Harris graduated from USC with a degree in hotel, restaurant, and tourism management. He ran the Elbow Room on Harden Street, and he partnered to open Saluda's, originally a health food restaurant with a self-directed smoking ban. He sold his part at Saluda's in 1999, and soon opened NightCaps.

Harris has plans for a December wedding with Rachael Amick, mother of two children, ages 12 and 16.

Both Durkins and NightCaps average about $3,000 a month in cigarette sales. Each has three smoke eradicating machines in the ceiling, eliminating cigarette smoke at a rate three times the norm. Each has a late-night business, sometimes closing at sunrise.

Both barmen, by the way, are healthy non-smoking athletes who work out regularly.

Both bar owners want to keep their businesses as they are, and both want to keep their regular customers coming in. They are happy to advertise the constant smoking, warning all comers who find smoking offensive to stay away.

Neither serves much food, so the restaurant designation doesn't fit too comfortably. These are drinking bars, adult neighborhood haunts where "everybody knows your name."

Customers at NightCaps include many lawyers, to include justices of the state's higher courts. Former and current members of city council are regulars.

Durkins, a private club, tends to stay open later as something of a hospitality for fellow professionals who get off work at their bars in the wee hours of the morning. Their after-work happy hour can sometimes be 3 am.

Both barmen want to get the word out their businesses are happy to see new customers. But if conversation is not a skill, and if drinking is not an entertainment, and if smoking is not a comfort, they beg their fellow citizens to leave them and their customers alone.

Willy Durkins of Durkins and David Harris of NightCaps