Have you ever walked into a restaurant or bar in France and been practically knocked over by the wall of cigarette smoke? That won’t happen any longer since as of Jan 1, 2008 smoking is prohibited in restaurants, bars, night clubs, etc. in France. Smoking has already been banned in other public places for some months, but the aforementioned establishments were given more time to adapt. In other words they held the law off as long as they possibly could.
All this brings back some painful memories that we won’t have to deal with again, like dining in a cute little “Bouchon” in Lyon (a typical type of restaurant in Lyon- there are many of them in the city), and by the end of the meal my poor sinuses were screaming for relief for the smoke. Or how about hopping onto a smoking train car by mistake? I remember too years ago being stuck in the smoking section of a trans-Atlantic flight before smoking was banned completely. For a while all was well, as no one was smoking around us. But then a couple of people who were sitting in the no smoking section came back and sat in empty seats just long enough to puff on a couple of weeds before returning to their regular seats, leaving us to consume the residue of their cigarettes.
I made a blog post about this subject once before and received a comment from an irate smoker who suggested that I was somehow deficient and could not appreciate the unique ambiance of French cafes and restaurants, of which smoking was a part. As if gagging on second hand smoke, not to mention the possibility of developing cancer from it, was somehow “quaint”. It will be a pleasure not to have to worry about this in the future, assuming people comply with the laws. I think it is fair to say that even in many restaurants that had so-called non-smoking sections, these were often very close to the smoking area and didn’t help much at all. It’s about time!
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2 comments:
We have to respect smokers but smokers has to respect us. Public places are this : public . all activities in public areas has to respect all members from this community.
Hi. Thought you might find it interesting that more and more cities worldwide are going non-smoking. Beijing announced on Friday that it would ban smoking in time for the Olympics. The ban would cover most public buildings. According to the USAToday article, “restaurants, bars, and hotels can still allow smoking but must provide smoke-free areas or rooms.” In a city where “23% of those above age 15 smoke,” one restaurant preempted the ban and went smoke free last week. The restaurateur already reports improved business and customer satisfaction.
You should check out my challenge to the industry to go non-smoking. His blog on HospitalityLawyer.com is at: http://blog.hospitalitylawyer.com/
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