Live News From Spain As It Happens

Steve Fox said:
Saturday, June 30, 2012 @ 4:44 PM

Health is the most important thing to the individual, why risk changing the current anti smoking culture to the health detriment of everyone ? if smokers need to be catered for then create a screened off and positive air extraction area (if absolutely neccessary).

This post from a smoker who quit 20 years ago and finds smoke unpleasant, unheathy and anti social !

Smokers do not understand (or do not want to understand) the discomfort they inflict on those people who do not wish to become ill with a life threatening illness caused by smoke inhalation.

Steve Cummings said:
Saturday, June 30, 2012 @ 5:46 PM

At last some sense being applied to the ridiculous ban on smoking in Bars in Spain! Isn't it interesting that, while all else crumbles around us, Western countries - the USA, UK, Spain etc - enforce Draconian bans on what people can do and where?

Spanish Bar-life has been ruined since the ban on smoking - and I speak as one who has never smoked - leading to unemployment and a slowing-down of the Economy.

In Summer we non-smokers sit in dismal, air-conditioned, empty Bars while the smokers gather outside in hot, but convivial company. In Winter the same gang of us are within watching the poor wretched smokers huddling together outside in the rain and cold. No-ones life has been improved but a lot of small-minded misery has been inflicted.

And to those ex-smokers who want to vent their new-found anti-smoking fanaticism on all and sundry I say this: Don't you think it just the tiniest bit strange that the same British government who banned smoking actually encouraged 24-hour drinking at the same time? When was the last time you felt under threat on a British street because someone was puffing on a Woodbine? How many smokers do you see vomiting in Bus shelters late at night? How many gangs of marauding Capstan Full- Strength users do you see rampaging down the High Street at midnight looking for a punch-up?

And finally, guess what? They haven't banned it in Germany, the land of the Law-abiding. It has been left to the individual German Lander to decide for themselves.

What ought to have happened was that Bar-owners should have been left to decide whether they wanted to run a "Smoking" Bar or a "Non-smoking" Bar and post a notice at the entrance stating which was the case. That way potential customers could choose where they wanted to spend their time (and cash). But that, of course, would not be enough for those who delight in exerting their will upon the rest of us.

Now maybe, at last, and not before time, we may be given the choice. I know where I will be. See you inside, next to the fag-machine. :>)

Brian J Deller said:
Saturday, June 30, 2012 @ 6:13 PM

As a life long non-smoker whose father smoked up to 60 a day (I have already lived 12 years longer than he did without the last ten years he suffered with heart attacks and emphysema etc. and he was slim as well, I am now potentially pleased that my wife (also a l-l non-smoker) and I can go out and eat in a smoke-free environment. But we cannot unless we eat inside the restaurant. The terraces are out of bans for us especially if the smokers are British as requests for them to stop are ignored, sometimes with aggro. The law states quite clearly that smoking is banned in all eating (and offices etc) areas but the smokers, used to ignoring the laws as they probably do in other ways as well, think their needs are sancrosanct. The laws also state that the establishments must erect "no smoking" signs everywhere, and thsi is not enforced by local authorities either but most only put them on the terraces thus perpetuating the myth that smokers are allowed to kill themselves and others around them outside on te terraces. We have watched sick people with a cigarette in one hand and a fork in the other alternatively rapidly "feeding" their bodies. All smokers actually need help to save their lives and one way is to strictly enforce the laws. If done every where the smokers will still go to bars etc to socialise. There is no point in having a law if it is not enforced and this is a good law along with not driving drunk, etc.

aly said:
Sunday, July 1, 2012 @ 3:20 PM

Methinks some people will say anything to clinch a business deal. And we will be out of recession when it's built? Another potential costly white elephant.

Jez said:
Sunday, July 1, 2012 @ 7:04 PM

well said Steve Cummings.!

stephen said:
Sunday, July 1, 2012 @ 10:19 PM

I hope all the selfish non smokers who think it's their right to dictate to others eventually kill off the holiday bar culture that I so love and make holidays as boring as their lives must be.

Steve Cummings said:
Monday, July 2, 2012 @ 12:26 AM

Does anyone else here wonder why we appear to all be called Steve? - well, almost! Is that spooky or what?

I can tell you something, whether your name is Steve or not: Smoker or non-smoker you are all going to die anyway. It is what you do along the way that matters. :>)

Meshach said:
Tuesday, July 3, 2012 @ 4:37 PM

Why would Spanish bar life be ruined by a non smoking ban? I wonder, because it does not ruin bar life in Dublin,the smokers in Temple Bar go outside,...or the United States. Admitedly though you are allowed to smoke in the casinos in Las Vegas, Nevada because each state has different laws.
I have enjoyed the social culture more in Spain since the smoking ban. It means I do not have to take my clothes off and put them in the washing machine as soon as I walk in after a night out,... because they really stink!!! My eyes no longer sting after about 30 mins from cigarette smoke in poorly ventilated bars. Not to mention the invisible damage it does to internal organs. It really is about time Spain embraced many cultural changes not only the smoking ban. I mean fully embraced not just looked for excuses to ignore it or get around it. There are all sorts of other laws that are stone age in Spain, inheritence for one, I mean who ever heard of anything so ridiculous as a wife or husband paying inheritance tax on their own home. Or taking your car backwards and forwards to the garage because they have not got the part and every day they say manana. There is only one word I can think of and that is "draconian". Sadly when I think of Spain I think of corruption and a very poor economy. Spain has not yet realised we are in the 21st Century. They need to get smart and good at something other than football because that victory is short lived and will not help their economy.

Steve said:
Wednesday, July 4, 2012 @ 6:44 PM

Spanish bar life is dying with it's economy another nail in it's coffin will be the banning of coffin nails (fags) In England 11 pubs a week have been closing since the smoking ban. In reply to Meshach people who ban others from doing what they chose always say it is for the better of others, ignoring the detriment of the few. Any non smoking people who own a diesel car had better keep quiet on the ill effects passive smoking as diesel smoke kills everyone, smokers or not.

Brian J Deller said:
Monday, August 13, 2012 @ 9:42 AM

It amazes me as a life long non-smoker that some here accuse the non-smokers of being selfish. The law actually states that smoking is not allowed in any part of a bar or restaurant, none of this misconceived crap about you are allowed to smoke out on the terraces. I have asked people to please stop smoking as they sit down next to us on a terrace in a restaurant and only received flak from expat Brits who tell me that they are allowed to smoke and that we must go inside the building. I now have the fast tel, number for our policia local so I can phone them to get an officer to explain the laws to them, I carry them in English anyway. Having had to endure 74 years of not enjoying eating in restaurants or similar places, I am now pleased that the law has been changed to ensure that the "drag addicts" are forced to improve their health. I have already lived 15 years longer than my father who was a smoker, and I can swim under water easily the length of a big swim pool, and I feel that I am doing people a favour by encouraging them to stop smoking. But lioe drug and alcohol addicts they must make the conscious decision to stop (and feel much better for doing so) but in the meantime, smokers keep your foul habit to yourselves and smoke well away in the "fresh air". I am not demanding that you stop smoking as it is your "human right" as it is my wife and mine's to breath fresh unpolluted air when we eat. I have even seen smokers eat and smoke at the same time in a restaurant, cigarette in one hand, fork in the other. Sick, sick, sick!

Laura said:
Thursday, August 23, 2012 @ 1:47 PM

Here's my 2p on this

Any smoking regulations should do the following
-promote everyone's right to choice
-protect minors

Its a very cunning ploy on behalf of the tobacco industry to make smokers (and non) feel like they have rights to smoke in places where minors and non smokers will be affected; that includes indoors and outdoors, cars the lot. Smokers you are completely free to smoke by yourself where no one will be affected, but why rob a non smoker of their right to fresh air

It's also a complete misnomer that smokers have the right to "choose" since the vast majority are addicts. Unfortunately in Spain although the laws are strict they are rarely enforced