Hacker News Reader

Comment by miguel_rdp | Hacker News Reader

During a recent visit to Hamburg I entered a smallish pub/bar and it was so smoky that it seemed like a portal to the 90's!

View on HN

I remember sometime in the 90's or so taking a trip to California (I'm on the East Coast) when they'd just banned smoking in bars. That was such a revelation. Doubly so because I went to some jazz/blues place and the it was all just so weird but also so nice.

It makes me a totally hypocrite (my poltics are generally against those kind of bans) but it made everything so much nicer that I couldn't help but like it.

They came for the smokers and I did nothing. Niemöller was totally right.

Similarly, traveling from smoke-free to smoking-afflicted regions is a major shock, and I've had to stop myself from commenting where I see people lighting up or encounter smoke-filled premises.

Though my immediate inclination on encountering same is to get out as quickly as possible. The experience is absolutely revolting.

Yup, my culture shock seeing a table of salarymen chain smoking in the restaurant in Japan.

While I prefer non-smoking sections indoors, generally, I've been in a few coffeeshops with such good ventilation that the air felt better inside than on the street. (though that might have been an illusion from it being cold)

IIRC, the country I'm in was the first to ban smoking indoors at venues. 2003 or so, I believe. I was a kid, so I didn't really notice it aside from the warning signs and the first time I went abroad.

When I was a kid, children (or at least teen-agers) could work in foodservice spaces in which smoking was permitted. By end of shift, clothing and hair smelled like an ashtray.

The smoking bans I'm familiar with were phased in beginning in the 1990s, though specifics varied by locale (some cities and counties were earlier on the ban) and type of location (offices, restaurants, bars, etc.).

There are still 12 US states without comprehensive smoking bans, virtually all in the deep south: AL, AR, GA, KT, OK, SC, SD, TN, TX, VA, WV, WY. (SD and WY are the exceptions.)

Notably, the famed liberal strongholds of Missouri and Mississippi do have restaurant smoking bans.

I will point out that it's not as in the Niemoller poem....that's about people you're indifferent to/things that didn't affect your life directly.

Banning smokers actively made your life better - removing the behavior increased your enjoyment of the setting.

Travel advice: This is an experience possible in Hamburg, but, e.g. not in Munich, due to (non-)smoking legislation happening on the state level.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com