Posted on 12/28/2007 3:14:43 PM PST by NormsRevenge
PARIS - From next week, one of France's most iconic institutions — the smoky cafe — will be but a hazy memory.
The extension of France's smoking ban to bars, discotheques, restaurants, hotels, casinos and cafes on Jan. 1 marks a momentous cultural shift in a country where thinkers like Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir once held court while clutching cigarettes in Left Bank cafes.
For smokers, this is the most distressing part of a phased smoking ban that began last February in workplaces, schools, airports, hospitals and other "closed and covered" public places like train stations.
But many bartenders and restaurant staffers are looking forward to breathing easier and to clothes that don't stink of seeped-in odors from the clouds of smoke where they work.
Just about anywhere indoors will be off-limits for smoking, except homes, hotel rooms, and sealed smoking chambers at establishments that decide to provide them.
"The French culture associated with smoking is a 20th-century thing, but we won't forget the experience," ex-smoker Lisa Zane, a Chicago-born singer who lives in Paris, said at Le Fumoir (The Smoking Den) restaurant and bar behind the Louvre.
"Smoking seems insane now — we have to adapt."
The Health Ministry says one in two regular smokers here dies of smoking-related illness, and about 5,000 nonsmokers die each year of passive smoking. About a quarter of France's 60 million people are smokers.
The ban will likely mean more unsightly cigarette butts on sidewalks and in gutters. British American Tobacco's French arm on Wednesday began a pilot program in and near Paris of putting ashtrays outside bars where tobacco products are sold.
Countries like Italy, Spain, Belgium, Britain and Ireland already have smoking bans. But it's tough to imagine the style-conscious French bundling up in blankets to smoke on chilly restaurant terraces, like some Londoners have.
Many restaurateurs, cafe owners and disco operators fear lost business: Smokers who light up with a countertop morning coffee, on the dance floor or after a meal make up a huge customer base.
"There will be a drop, certainly. The tobacco-bar is part of the French tradition," said Christophe Mgo, owner of Le Marigny bar in northwest Paris. "They (customers who smoke) will surely stay less time and they will only drink one coffee or beer, instead of two."
A national union of disco owners has said it expects a 5- to 8-percent decline in business initially, and has urged the government to send pamphlets to police to show "understanding" in their enforcement of the ban.
Some 10,000 protesters, mainly tobacco vendors, marched across Paris last month in an unsuccessful attempt to persuade lawmakers to add flexibility to the new prohibitions.
In a minor concession, the government says it won't fully enforce the new ban on New Year's Day — giving smokers the right to puff away until Jan. 2.
The government is increasingly encouraging smokers to quit. A traveling campaign went to seven cities in November and December, offering rapid-fire meetings with anti-smoking experts — a bit like speed-dating sessions.
For those who continue to smoke, the bitterness will take time to fade over what they see as an infringement of their freedoms.
"Great idea," smoker Daniel Marierouyer, 45, said sarcastically at Le Fumoir. "I love it when things get imposed on us — Buckle your seat beat, don't smoke, you need to be healthy, you're too fat."
A Parisian smokes a cigarette outside a shop in Paris, France Thursday, Dec. 27, 2007. With the new year on Tuesday, France will start enforcing the most far-reaching phase of a new smoking ban in public places — this time at restaurants, bars, hotels, casinos, discos, and cafes. (AP Photo/Francois Mori)
France surrenders to another petite tyranny - like the Americans who will piss for a job.
Wow, half of French smokers live forever.
The difference between the smoking bans in Europe and those in America is that in Europe they are pretty much ignored.
I recall the airport in Frankfurt, "No Smoking" signs every ten feet and people smoking like chimneys nonetheless.
“’;:/.< >
The Middle East is the last bastion of freedom as far as smoking goes. I was walking through the malls in Dubai and smoking away freely. I just couldn't shake the feeling that I was doing something wrong. It just felt so odd to be smoking inside a shopping mall.
When I went on my honeymoon, flying from NY to California in 1974 en route to Hawaii, you could smoke ANYWHERE YOU WANTED TO ON THE PLANE.
Every seat had a little metal ash tray built into the arm rest. Every seat.
I can’t imagine it now, but you didn’t think twice about lighting up after the No Smoking light was extinguished.
Je suis fumeur ici. S’il vous plaît aller et de vous mêler de vos affaires. Vous pouvez avoir mes cigarettes lorsque vous les prenez de mon froid, les doigts morts.
I remember visiting a friend who was in the hospital recovering from surgery. Visitors and patients smoked freely.
And both beds in my friend’s semi-private room had ashtrays on their nightstands.
That was around 1985.
I have friends who are all for smoking bans, untill I tell them that once they ban smoking in public they will go after the next unhealthy thing like fastfood, alcohol, salt, and sugar.
Can they still smoke at the sidewalk cafes?
Uh, huh. Sure.
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