Things I learned in Ireland
by Volker Weber
The Irish people are not only very friendly, they are also much smarter than the Germans. At first you don't notice the difference when you are going out with your friends at night. The pubs are completely crowded, lots of people are meeting and everybody is having a jolly good time. And then it hits you: You can breathe freely. No smoking at all. Ireland has passed a law banning smoking in pubs and restaurants two years ago, and now a huge majority supports it. In Germany this discussion has only just started and you hear statements like this on public TV:
Natürlich ist es in einer Bierkneipe völlig absurd, ein Rauchverbot zu verhängen.
In Ireland even the smokers like the regulation. Why is that? It's the perfect chance to meet somebody. You just wait until somebody steps out, and then you follow him/her. ;-)
In contrast to what the tobacco lobbyists scare tactics say, business is up. This is no surprise to me since the air in pubs and restaurants is now owned by everybody and not by the "tolerant" smokers.
Comments
Following the Irish example, the Scottish parliment this spring also banned smoking in most (those that serve food) pubs, and restaurants [sic], and after many predictions of doom and gloom, from day one, business has been up, and up significantly!
Food revenue in bars is the main success story. I would never go to a pub for lunch/dinner before the ban. I don't want to smell of smoke for the rest of the day. That is not a problem anymore.
since this, the values for automobile exhausts are going up and up, and this affects all people, not only the small group of non-smokers which goes in the pub now.
the actual discussion about non-smoking looks like a witch-hunt. Maybe there are no more importantly things, but i can´t believe it.
The smoking ban, at first, was a real source of consternation and I, as a smoker, was initially quite annoyed about it. It's no fun smoking in the wind and rain!!
But after a while what you say has become true. A whole new social scene has developed as a result of people having to smoke outside. People who would normally never speak to each other are meeting over a cigarette.
Some people, who don't even smoke, have started going outside while people are smoking just to avail of the conversation and so on.
This is what I would deem a beneficial side-effect.
New Zealand has been smokefree in all indoor public places (bars, pubs, restaurants, workplaces etc) since December 2004. It certainly makes it more enjoyable for non-smokers on a night out. Again, as with other places around the world, it has been a success. There is a downside though....now all OUTDOOR public places are frequented by smokers indulging in their addiction so non-smokers have to again endure the smoke again while trying to have their lunch on a nice mid winters day. Already, initiatives have been started to reduce smoking in public parks and amenities by local authorities. Though this is voluntary, this will no doubt change soon. We will all be the better for it.
I smoke cigars, I am concerned about the new laws, just go outside is not a solution for smoking cigar. There is a difference between cigars and cigarettes. I smoke for the joy, the conversation and for relaxing. Anyway i think , the cigarsmokers will looking for cigar lounges (like clubs) anyway.
I know a lot of people who would go out more often if smoking was banned in pubs/restaurants/clubs here in Germany. And there are even a couple of smokers among them (though admittedly, no hardcore chain-smokers). I also seriously doubt that business would be hurt at all. I think it's more likely that business would be up just as has been the case in Ireland, Scotland or Italy.
Unfortunately, Germany traditionally has a lot of strong lobbies. These lobbies happen to be intertwined (you might want to say "networked" if you think this is a good thing) in a lot of ways. Both the pub/restaurant (Gaststaetten) lobby as well as the tobacco lobby have a strong standing in the political process. All you have to do is to add one to another. Recently, politics and lobby representatives agreed to a "good will agreement" under which pub and restaurant owners are encouraged to compulsively establish non-smoking zones in their places, though there are no financial or other incentives given to these owners whatsoever. I haven't heard of improvements that were attributed to that agreement and I doubt there will be any.
Even a partial ban on smoking is not going to happen anytime soon in this country. Looks as if we have to wait a couple of years for the European Union to come up with legislation and then another couple of years until Germany is forced to implement that legislation.
This topic also reminds me of something I experienced recently: I was sitting in a restaurant and having lunch. The place was quite small but nonetheless very crowded and it seemed as if everybody was smoking. Of about ten tables, only three had a non-smoking sign placed on the table. These tables were simply randomly spread between all the smoking tables, so they could've saved themselves the hassle of putting these ridiculous signs up. I shouldn't forget to say this was in a hospital and there was no other place to have lunch...
Canada went smoke-free many years ago, then when I came to Germany for studies a couple years ago it was terrible trying to get used to the smoke again, especially the smell on your clothes and even hair after a long night out at the local watering hole.
I just got back to Germany for World Cup and the FIRST thing I noticed about 20 steps off the plane was the smell of smoke from the "designated areas" in the airport. Brutal.
I hope Germany goes smoke-free soon... so I can fully enjoy everything Germany has to offer :-) Go Germany Go!!!
Regarding all the success stories you describe here I wonder why the decision for a similar law in Germany comes together so slowly. However they sure make me optimistic that it will be passed eventually.
Glad (well, not really) to know Belgium is not the last to ban smoking in public places.
We've had smoke-free workplaces since several years, though it is not exactly always followed up in outdoor settings. For example, you're not allowed to smoke in trainstations, but out on the tracks waiting for the train there are always a few who smoke.
We'll have smoke-free restaurants from 2007, bars are still excempt.
I stopped smoking 2 years ago so I do not care much if smoking is allowed or not but if it is such a huge success why do pubs and restaurants not just prohibit smoking based on their own decision?
Why does it need a law to do what many people seem to demand?
By the way. It does not need some weird Norton stuff not being able to post comments here (as mentioned in http://vowe.net/noreferrer.php), Thunderbirds RSS function is enough.
Last year, the state of Georgia (in the US) passed a 'controversial' smoking ban. Basically it came down to the fact that if restaurants served people under the age of 18, you could not allow smoking. So what did some restaurants/pubs start doing? They started banning people under the age of 18 (a business decision). But guess who does not get my business? I guess I was just spoiled by a month in Los Angeles where I could walk out of a restaurant and/or bar and not smell of smoke.
Henning, probably for the same reason, that you need to put up 30 km/h zones to protect your children. It would be common sense not to race through a residential area or in front of a school, but you need a law to control those few who will never understand.
You don't want to discuss with selfish patrons, and you want to let everybody know that it is safe to go.
As for you inability to post, RSS has nothing to do with comments. You will only get the "no referrer" page when you are not sending a referrer when posting the comment. You cannot comment from an RSS item. What you can do however is to lock yourself out of the site by pre-fetching all pages from the feeds. There is a limit of 15 page views per minute and IP.
Apart from what Volker is saying, I think there are at least two more factors that hinder an "efficient market solution" here:
1. There's no non-smoker's lobby in Germany. On the contrary, the tobacco industry has always been in need of a strong lobby in all markets in order to keep its business up and running, European and Non-European. In Germany, this lobby still goes very strong.
2. This argument might sound a bit far-fetched, but it should not be dismissed: a vast majority of federal politicians in Germany (chain-)smokes themselves. This "phenomena" seems to be on the decline in recent years, as society - very slowly - starts to look down on smokers.
3. Tobacco taxes accounted for more than €14 billion in 2005, which translates into 7.5% of federal taxes in that year. Tobacco taxation yields the second highest revenue of all consumption taxes within the federal budget (with gasoline taxes being the no. 1 consumption tax). Additionally, the Bund doesn't have to share these revenues with the Laender. You don't want to touch these revenues if you're a federal politician unless you believe you can attract voters by introducing yet another tax to compensate the loss.
You are touching on something I would be very interested in. It appears that revenues for pubs and restaurants have gone up. But what happened to tobacco? Has its use gone down? Have more people stopped smoking?
That's indeed a critical point, Volker. Fortunately, tobacco use can be measured almost precisely due to the taxes that come with it (let's ignore black market tobacco). It would be really interesting to see whether tobacco use has actually gone down significantly in countries like Ireland, Scotland, Italy, NZ or the US after implementation of the tobacco bans there. I'd suppose in a tobacco lobbyist's brain there is a clear cut negative correlation between consumption restrictions and tobacco sales. However, studies that'd look into this relationship would be really interesting.
What has been empirically confirmed is that tobacco use is reasonably "price-elastic" as economists say: when government increased tobacco taxes some time ago, gross revenues actually went down due to the hefty decrease in tobacco consumption.
Martin, sorry. That's just not true. Fact is, that smuggling of cheap tobacco has increased over the last years - at least in Germany. Like it or not, the tobacco industry is still making their share, because of cigarettes "imported" to Germany or other parts of the EU that were produced were labour is cheap. So what's happening is two things: tax income from smokers is dropping. Which might be good if you're lead to believe that fewer people are smoking. Actually, that's not the case. It's just that more folks are starting their own business ;) So in reality, government income (from taxes) really went down. But not because of a decrease in consumption.
You're right, Stefan. At least cigarette seizures by German customs did increase a huge deal over the last years and the role of the black market probably shouldn't be underestimated here. A more precise statement would be that legal tobacco consumption is price-elastic.
I am deeply grateful that New York City banned smoking in restaurants and bars. Very much so.
Protection of non-smokers seems to be one of the points that are currently discussed in the ongoing government coalition consultations on health reform. The minister of consumer protection came up with a striking idea: to ban tobacco ads. Apparently he didn't take notice yet of the European-wide ban of tobacco advertisement which went into effect in 2005. Neither did he seem to take notice of the demand of the European Commission to finally implement this law and nor of the looming lawsuit against Germany at the European Court of Justice associated with all this. Please do us a favor and come up with some real ideas.
One simple question to the smoking-question in germany: People don't want to see new and sucessfull things to be introduced. They scare about the idea of smoke-free german pubs crowded from smokers AND nonsmokers, both together and happy, and rising sales.
And tobacco-taxes would not fall that much at all, because smokers would simply continue to smoke – with the only excemption not to hurt others anymore in workplaces like bars.
People in germany don't like to see the commercial sucess in other countries with smoke-free legislation, and they don't think about one point: How much sales and jobs are gone in germany because people continue to stay at home from smoke-filled pubs? In my opinion more and more bars in germany will go to the wall until a smoke-free law is introduced.
