We have to wait for non smoking too. Wonder if it’s the type of restaurant...we tend to frequent kid friendly chain type places.
Many places don’t even have smoking sections anymore (not that they do much anyway). From what I can recall, the “standard American fare” places that my family visits such as Outback, Chili’s, Applebee’s, Glory Days, Sweetwater (some of which are local), and so on are invariably “seat yourself significantly sooner” if you want to sit nearer to the smokers. I guess I also frequent the same type of places, so it’s hard to say. Most other places I go to (Italian and Japanese restaurants for the most part) are almost all non-smoking, so I can’t make a comparison there.