France passes restaurant smoking ban

[burnthebeautiful]

Yep, add another place in the world to places where it'll be illegal to smoke in restaurants. France (at least up until now) infamous for its smoking residents, has passed a smoking ban.

France's ban isn't as extreme as many others. At bars that sell cigarettes, as well as nightclubs and casino's, will still be allowed to allow smoking. So I guess bars will start selling cigarettes.

[felix.benner]

We've seen that game already. Soon Germany will claim that the smoking ban didn't harm france and institute an even more severe restriction. Then France will say: Well, the Germans have a more restrictive ban, we should adopt it. It won't take long until the European community will begin discussing a europe wide smoking ban, but when that happens the states' governments will have realized that the income from smoking tax is falling and they will cancel it in the EU and will stop enforcing the ban in the states, unless of course someone important want's to harm the bar owner. Maybe I'm too pessimistic here, but I'd take a bet. Hmmm ... no smoking smily?  :fire:

[citizen_142002]

I'm stunned that the French did this. I can't imagine it has the support of the people.

[burnthebeautiful]

I'm surprised that France passed this, too. Like I said, France is infamous for the fact that frenchmen love to smoke. Smoking in caf?s is practically the nations biggest hobby, for christs sakes.

It saddens me that being allowed to smoke cigarettes in privately owned places of business is on its way to becoming a novelty. I wonder how long it will be before smoking in bars is like gambling or prostitution, one of those things that are legal in very few places and are like a tourist novelty legality. Soon there'll only be one or two states left that allow smoking, and people will begin travelling to smoking-allowed states on vacation to smoke in bars in the way that people currently travel to Vegas to go gambling.

[citizen_142002]

Well France doesn't have strong property rights, so just about everything seems to be subject to govt. regulation. I see France as a softcore marxist state. I really can't imagine living in such a nation and I would hope that the people of the US will turn to revolution, peaceful or otherwise, before we ever reach a state of affairs like that.
Employers can't even really fire a bad employee for Pete's sake. The socialist mob reigns in Paris. It saddens me that a nation with a vibrant culture like France, suffers under stiffling statism.

[burnthebeautiful]

The french government definately doesn't respect property rights, but with France's smoking culture, I'd more expect them to mandate that caf?s and restaurants have to allow smoking than do the opposite.

[Pat K]

Well when the passed it in Ireland, tis shocked I was. I thought for sure the folks there would tell them to go fook themselves. Sigh

[burnthebeautiful]

In Sweden there's a long-running tradition of "black clubs" that operate semi-legally by vaguely following the rules you need to follow to technically be a "private party". Banning smoking gave the underground clubs yet another advantage over the legal ones. In fact I remember being in my local bar a month or so after our smoking ban went into effect and asked if they had any leftover ashtrays they could give me, and they told me they'd already given their ashtrays to a friend of theirs who runs a black club.

The law here says you don't need a permit to sell alcohol at a private party only open to people you know.

So what people do is they find some empty room like a basement or an empty storage facility, make everyone who enters pay a "membership fee" and write down their name on a piece of paper (that covers the "knowing everyone" part), and bam, you're running a club that doesn't have to follow any rules that bars do, because technically it's a "private party". You can allow smoking, close whenever you want, don't have to pay taxes on what you sell, don't have to follow any of the government regulations on employees, you can gamble, etc.

[citizen_142002]

Sounds like a good idea.

[aries]

You can still smoke in restaurants and more importantly bars in NH

[maineiac]

You can still smoke in restaurants and more importantly bars in NH

I'm assuming there must be some non-smoking establishments in business, too, correct?

[burnthebeautiful]

You can still smoke in restaurants and more importantly bars in NH

I'm assuming there must be some non-smoking establishments in business, too, correct?

I visited New Hampshire for 2 weeks, ate in restaurants two times a day every single day, and never saw a single establishment that allowed smoking.

[d_goddard]

I visited New Hampshire for 2 weeks, ate in restaurants two times a day every single day, and never saw a single establishment that allowed smoking.

Bingo!
After the government-force smoking ban was foiled, what do you know... the damned hypocrites all of a sudden decided to go smoke-free voluntarily! And guess what??? They're not going out of business, like they said they would!

You can bet your bottom dollar, the statists and do-gooders will try and put up a smoking ban AGAIN next legislative session.
But this time, we can point to all these cases where restaurants did it voluntarily, and ask the rest, "what is your problem, that you can't do this on your own like more than half your competition has already done? You need momma government to tell you what to do?"

[aries]

You can still smoke in restaurants and more importantly bars in NH

I'm assuming there must be some non-smoking establishments in business, too, correct?

Yeah but most bars are smoking establishments... probably since most smokers, even occasional ones, enjoy a smoke when drunk.

[Pat McCotter]

Yeah but most bars are smoking establishments... probably since most smokers, even occasional ones, enjoy a smoke when drunk.

Wow! I didn't know I was supposed to be drunk when in a bar.