Smokin'!!!

Ever since hubby and myself went to New Zealand in 2004, I've had the feeling that a change was coming in our smoking culture. Perhaps not as radically as in Kiwi-land, but still. I remember our first evening in Kiwi-land. Jet-lagged, tired, irritated and ultimately shocked (it was December 26, the day of the tsunami), and longing for an after-dinner cigarette. We were sitting on the terrace of a restaurant on the banks of the Avon river, and I made the mistake of asking for an ashtray. The reaction of the waiter was telling: first he glared, then he glowered, then he stomped off to fetch the tiniest possible ashtray, which he almost threw on our table. Needless to say that smoking is not done, down under.

For some reason, however, this non-smoking mindset just does not want to take hold in The Netherlands. After the smoking ban for bars and restaurants was came into action on 1 July, there has been nothing but grumbling. To the point even, that this week owners of small cafés have put forward a petition to have the decision overturned, because apparently the smoking ban has caused them a severe loss of income.

Really? I have a different theory. Imagine for me, if you will, the truth about the Dutch smoking ban. There you are, asthmatic, allergic to smoke, and looking forward to a nice night out with your friends. You decide to visit a particular club. And then the problem starts. Because in order to go out, you have to get in. Yet all the smokers who kept you out of the bar when there was no ban, are now standing IN THE DOORWAY, steaming away all the cigarettes they would otherwise have smoked inside. So you have to take a breath deep enough to shame a whale, feel your way through the cloud of toxic vapours towards the door, only to be barred by an army of bad-tempered addicts, who are freezing cold, irate from having to go outside in the first place and irritable because they don't get nearly as much nicotine as they would like. In other words, NO WAY are they likely to step aside to let you through unhindered. And as you finally squeeze yourself through the two inches of space you managed to find, you are so out of breath that you have to take a deep gulp, allowing the fumes that have drifted in from outside to cause you to cough uncontrollably, resulting in panic, 112-calls, hospitalisation and so on... No wonder that bar attendance is down.

Yet still, a change is coming. I just think we need to look at the younger generation to make it happen. I drew hope from a news item I found yesterday: a couple in Germany, who had gone out onto their balcony to have a last cigarette before bedtime, had to be rescued by the local fire service. They had been locked out by their three-year old son, who'd had enough of their nicotine habit, and who adamantly refused to let his parents back in. Atta boy. It's that kind of attitude that will have bar visits soaring again. That, and a 15-foot smoking ban around the front doors of pubs, clubs and restaurants.