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Comment by mc32 | Hacker News Reader

It also helps that it’s a high trust society and you don’t get a lot of delinquent kids breaking in to get cigs or beer. Obviously cameras help with that.

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The U.S. used to have cigarette vending machines. I believe they were phased out due to the desire to enforce age limits for smoking more strictly, not because of theft.

My general impression is that the U.S. used to have more vending machines in general ~30-40 years ago. I remember soda machines being outside of every grocery store, but I don't see that anymore. Newspaper vending machines also used to be common. But I don't have any data to back that up.

yes, there were more vending machines:

https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/vending-machines-snack...

I remember the cigarette machines from my youth. I was amazed that something so forbidden (I was a kid, and my parents didn't smoke) was available in restaurants if you were just bold/sneaky enough.

In Germany there are bars that still have them, but I think they're pretty rare now even there. The one used by one of my friends who smokes a lot even requires old DM coins, which you can get at the bar.

That's an amazing bit of indirection that both spares them having to update the machine and let's them change the price without reconfiguring the machine. Just like subway tokens.

Also in theory allows them to ensure that only people over the legal smoking age can use the machine

No they're still very common here. There are at least three within a 50m radius of my front door (inner city). Someone made a map of cigarette vending machines tagged in OSM in Dresden: http://ubahnverleih.de/osm/zigaretten/

Germany still has ubiquitous cigarette vending machines You need some electronic proof of age (drivers license, ID card, bank card), but of course you could just "borrow" someone else's and use that. It's just a date of birth stored on the card.

In LA the newspaper vending machines are still there, very common for ethnic language newspapers in certain neighborhoods, but probably 50% are abandoned on the sidewalk and used for trash and the occasional arson. Its one of those things where seemingly it's no one's responsibility to remove it, so there it will remain until they rust into dust or someone plows over one with their car.

LA is stuck in a bit of a time portal, though. Local mom and pop shops reign supreme still, especially ethnic stores, and there are even payphones still in frequent use by bus stops.

Yes I thought that when I visited. A vending machine on the streets of a UK city full of beer and cigs wouldn't last 3 minutes.

Railway stations in the UK used to have cigarette vending machines, back before smoking ban.

Not sure about the UK but in the US when there used to be cig vending machines it would be under the supervision of staff, so like in a bar.

In Japan they are out in the open in non descript corners and alleyways, although there is usually a streetlight.

They do require a "tobacco passport" to operate, which aims to make it harder for kids to buy them: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taspo

Then again, this is the same country where it's sufficient to self-certify by tapping a button that you're over 18 when buying hard liquor at the 7-11.

Is underage drinking a problem in Japan? Genuinely curious, I know salarymen feel obligated to drink with their bosses but have never heard about unruly drunk Japanese teenagers

Drinking is allowed over 20 years old but some university students tend to drink on eighteen on party. It's illegal but not thought as serious problem.

For high school student or below, smoking is problem (So vending machine must have authenticate feature like card(Taspo) or face age recognition) but drinking is looks like not popular but still considered as problem.

In croatia they have tiny little 5'x5' walk up convenient stores everywhere that might as well be vending machines, but I'm sure the drunks would get in there in no time if they weren't manned.

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