This scene from a table at Java Shack will be an unfamiliar one after the coffee shop bans smoking Nov. 1. (Photo: TBD Staff)

Smokers for whom coffee and cigarettes are a tandem ritual, take note. Lighting up will soon be forbidden on the patio at Java Shack in Arlington.

After a lengthy internal battle, owner Dale Roberts decided that the coffee shop’s patio will go completely smoke-free as of Nov. 1.

“I’ve had people in arguments out there over the smoking,” he says. He tried to accommodate everyone by separating smokers and non-smokers into various parts of the patio. “It didn’t work,” he says.

So why make the change now? There were a few negative online reviews about the smoking situation. And then Roberts ran into people at Clarendon Day that he hadn’t seen in awhile. “They told me they haven’t been coming because of the smoking,” he says.

In addition, Java Shack no longer has the market cornered as Clarendon’s only independent coffee shop. (Northside Social opened last year, and Bayou Bakery is planning to open just down the street on Nov. 1.)

Northside allows smoking on its patio, but has tons more space, both inside and out, than Java Shack. Often, no matter where you are -- inside or outside -- at the tiny ‘Shack, you can smell it when someone’s smoking. (Roberts says the competition factor was “in the back of his head,” but that it wasn’t a major reason for the switch.)

And then there was the time over the summer that Roberts painted the entire front patio -- only to find it littered with cigarette butts before it even dried. “They weren’t respectful of the area,” Roberts says of the smokers.

Java Shack may lose a few customers. Staff member Sam Sklover says a few of the smokers have told him that they probably would go elsewhere when the ban goes into effect. Roberts says “a very small handful that are upset.”

The smokers I found weren’t of this ilk. “I’ll just walk across the street,” says Daniel Phenrig. “I’ve been coming here for years. This is no reason for me to take my business away.”

Another smoker, who asked that his name not be used because he’s a teacher, said that while he finds the smoking ban “frustrating,” it wouldn’t change whether or not he comes to the coffeehouse. “It’s frustrating that you’re not allowed to smoke outside. I mean, at some point it’s legal, right?” he says. “But at the same time I understand his concerns with his customers.”

Roberts is hoping to win enough customers back to offset any losses that result from the new policy. “In the grand scheme, I think it’s going to be better. It’s just going to be more harmonious out there,” he says of the patio.