Will the smoking ban in France mean the end of café society?
Posted by TheShot on 18 Dec 2007 | Tagged as: Café Society
As with every anti-smoking measure, the Chicken Littles come out in force to announce the untimely death of a lifestyle or era. This time it is France’s turn: Will the smoking ban in France mean the end of café society? - International Herald Tribune.
What has inevitably happened in every case is that the Chicken Littles were proven wrong. Take Italy, for example, a country that successfully implemented major public anti-smoking measures in 2005 and, IMO, seems all the better for it. Although chain-smoking Italians could give their chain-smoking French counterparts an emphysemic run for their money, Italians seem to have survived their sweeping anti-smoking laws relatively unscathed.
While smoking is no longer allowed in public Italian bars, cafés, and restaurants, the customers have kept coming. And despite the French objections cited in the International Herald Tribune article, Italians have shown no signs of speeding up their leisurely meals, turning tables like American diners on the run. In fact, one of the things we most enjoyed about Italy during our last visit was the notion that a restaurant reservation is always about getting a table for the night — and not just until the next party chases you out with a clean tablecloth and a change of silverware.
5 Comments »
on 19 Dec 2007 at 2:51 pm -06:00T 1.Rich said …
Non-smoker here. The thing about Italy’s ban is that it’s not as draconian as those in NYC or Washington state. You can smoke outside at a Italian cafe if there’s no awning above your head. There are no limitations as to how many feet away from a door you need to be. So the “outdoor” cafe life continues fairly much as usual.
In other words, it’s more like common sense was applied than an attempt to punish or stigmatize people. The Italians actually kept the ban to health issues - protecting employees from having to breathe indoor polluted air regularly. It wasn’t about how some patron’s clothes might pick up a scent from having to spend a nanosecond walking through a small puff from a Galouise.
on 19 Dec 2007 at 4:45 pm -06:00T 2.TheShot said …
“Zero tolerance” really has become the operative word for any legislation or political movement in this country.
Naturally, people find it hard to be passionate about something as bland as “moderation” and sensibility. However, I’m willing to be a card-carrying member of that party.
on 26 Dec 2007 at 5:17 pm -06:00T 3.Carlo Odello said …
I am Carlo Odello, co-author of the book “Espresso Italiano Tasting” and journalist writing about coffee for Italian specialised magazines. First of all thank you very much for your nice blog, it is really accurate and up-to-date. As for the smoking ban in Italy, I totally agree with you: we did not experience any dramatic effect. There were no problems in enforcing the law, I mean it was well accepted by smokers as well. I think it was a great step in the quality of our cafès and restaurants, even smokers recognize it. I am in Brescia, please write me an e-mail in case you come to this city. I also attend the most important exhibitions in Italy, please keep in touch, perhaps we can meet in the future.
on 27 Dec 2007 at 12:57 pm -06:00T 4.TheShot said …
Carlo, it is an honor to have you post here. Keep up the excellent work as you have with “Espresso Italiano Tasting”. As you may have guessed, we are enormous fans of your work!
Italy has a (IMO, undeserved) reputation around the world for not being very “practical” when it comes to laws, etc. But in my experience, I’ve found many of their social rules and public laws — at least of late — to be far more practical than some of the “extremist” examples we see in other industrialized nations.
Brescia will have to be on our list of travels soon. (Pasticceria Zilioli included!) Will let you know for certain…
on 01 Jan 2008 at 3:36 pm -06:00T 5.Carlo Odello said …
@ Greg: I am happy you enjoyed the book I wrote with my father. Regarding Italian laws: you are right we are very practical people, just because our laws are too many and too complex, most of the times not clear, therefore we have to intepret them, to find the “remote meaning”. Fortunately we are not extremist and therefore we survive to our legislation. If you come to Brescia, just drop me an e-mail, I would like to have a coffee with you at Pasticceria Veneto as well, which was founded and still managed by Iginio Massari, very famous. Please visit http://www.pasticceriaveneto.it. We could also visit together “Torrefazione Agust” (www.caffeagust.it). Just let me know if I can be of any help, if I am here, I would be glad to meet you. I wish a great 2008 and a lot of quality espressos!