The smoking ban in Germany is simply pathetic

And how many new ones open each month? Or how many of the ones that close, open again somewhere else or under a different name.

And also note that it is a variety of factors driving them out of business.

On the contrary. No action will be taken at the moment because they don't actually know what action they should take. They fucked it up to begin with - I think that's beyond dispute. But if they're going to keep changing the goalposts every other week, then that is totally unfair - even the speculation of laws getting changed causes undue problems, because we all know from past history that the laws will be changed from one day to the next with no notice and the bars will just have to "live with it".

How can any business expect to thrive under these circumstances?

@DK: Those are the pubs that close down for good. If you include those that eventually reopen for whatever reason (usually because their attempts to sell the property as a private dwelling fail), then the number doubles to four a day. A pub "closing" may not sound a big deal, but if the pub is a couple of hundred years old and/or is the last pub in the village then I think it is.

In your opinion ...


Are you suggesting society should be firstly geared to not only ensuring that businesses not only sustain their income regardless of market forces but actually improve their turnover in a vibrant and dynamic manner?

I read somewhere that business is war... Sometimes one gets the impression that businesses are charitable enterprises that need social protection one does. Cultural heritage, blah blah, underpinning the local community, blah blah.

Personally I think that society has gone to the dogs since the introduction of public sanitation. Bring back the open sewers. You don't need to walk in them if you don't need to.

It's not about being charitable. But do you think it's fair to continually legislate change and force businesses to adapt to things that are not natural market forces, but the whims of politicians?

If a business cannot compete in a free market, then it should shut - no question. But if it is able to operate in a free market and then suddenly legislation comes in and artificially makes it difficult to continue that business, then that's not fair.

EDIT: and I see that you read the "busines is war" quote on the other thread. Care to answer the question I put to you there too? On that thread of course...

No, it really isn’t beyond dispute. Some of us just no longer have the patience and time to keep ‘debating’ the same issues over and over again.

All laws have people finding loopholes, especially when they are newly introduced. This is no different.

I’m actually quite pleased with the smokers clubs. This law has given the free market a good ‘kick in the pants’ in a certain direction and opened up a large swath of establishments for non-smokers, while still allowing nooks for those who insist on smoking. I now have a large choice for venues, and choose not to patronize places which have gone the smoker-club route. As time progresses, in the long term I imagine that the social pressure against smoking will make the prevalence of these establishments erode.

Basically, it puts pressure in a certain direction, without making it 100% required, quite elegant even if an unforeseen compromise.

I still don’t understand how you think a smoking ban can be ‘fucked up’… Smoking is banned, you can not smoke inside, end of story. How difficult is that really?

On a related note: in the predictions thread, noise complaints were predicted to be rampant. Has anything actually came of that? I haven’t seen any headlines about it.

Noise complaints are up 20% - and that in winter.

I can only imagine it's going to get even worse when the weather gets better and people don't mind standing outside.

I was at the Messe in Frankfurt last week. Go into the China Exhibitors section and every bugger is puffing away. I guess someone forgot to tell them the rules.

Or they knew the rules but conveniently forgot them again.

The usual biergarten rules will then apply, and we'll have to put up with smelly smokers mixed in with us again. I know you're just grinding your axe but this thread needs something new to make it exciting again.

Beergardens shut at 11pm. Can you not see the difference to a pub that's open until 4am or 5am? In fact, after beergardens close, many people continue onto a bar somewhere. A lot of people don't go home to bed at 11pm when beergardens shut.

I'll get onto a new point once people understand this fairly simple one. Obviously I've overestimated people here...

Oh, well we're back to the next old problem then aren't we? Smokers should just [take the wholly unpractical step of] shutting the fuck up while they smoke or expect the polizei to turn up. Loads of people are out on the streets anyway when the weather's nice, but we're just running over the same old...

Perhaps you could enlighten us as to how you make groups of drunk people (smoking or not) shut up...

Fine them for breaking the law?

Controversial You are not expecting people to be accountable for their own actions are you?

Our local Ordungsamt is about to launch a leafleting campaign for dog shit. They are not as overstretched as they make out.

[Edit] They were also whining about a lack of resources to police the smoking ban in Berlin but seem to have recently gone a bit quieter on that one.

The same way as any public nuisance is dealt with.

Under current laws, the pub gets fined.

So there are loud smokers outside...what do you do? You can't tell them to come in, because then they'd be breaking the smoking law. Telling them to shut up might solve the problem for that group, but then you'd either go back to the same problem as soon as the bar staff is gone or you have to employ an extra person who does nothing but tell people to be quiet. The 3rd option is to tell people to leave - but telling your customers to go away is hardly a good business move...

You're in luck then, apparently laws can change ...

One fairly logical conclusion from your very own scenario is that smokers are bad customers.

Yawn.

In order to brighten up this thread and introduce an element of civility:
Long live Jean Nicot.
The 12th. October 1492 should be made a national day of celebration.
As one who loves national days and stuff, maybe I'll start up a St. Jean Nicot
Day for 12th. October 2009 with a parade. A parade of fags being puffed (sic)
from Münchner Freiheit to Odeonsplatz to be followed by an open-air tobacco binge.
Who's ready to join the coolest celebration and parade Munich has ever seen?

Good...let's make people liable for their own noise then. You think they'd catch anyone? Do you think the cops will show up before the people who the noise complaints was against have gone back inside? It'll take time for them to get there, particularly if there are noise complaints all over the city. So they'll show up, just as a completely different group of people are leaving the pub and fine them? How will they catch the people who were responsible for the noise?


That's where you're wrong. Smokers drink a hell of a lot more than non-smokers - I say that from experience. So they are actually very good customers and it is only the introduction of this law that's changed this.

I think Hazza would like to argue that smokers are very good customers as they have poor impulse control and therefore once intoxicated are more likely to piss their money up the wall.

It's just unfortunate that they don't seem to be able to keep their mouths shut - oh what to do?

I think that MonksTown would like to second this point of view, as it would provide clear evidence why the smoking clubs are 'thriving' at the detriment of establishments who are catering to people with more impulse control.

But unfortunately that is a very un PC thing to say (and more important you don't want to offend this crucial business sector ) and the addicts would be up in arms. So they are reduced to their circular arguments.

Sorry about that chaps

[Edit] Thanks Hazza - you beat me to it (albeit in slightly gentler terms)

So the guy who 'discovered' tobacco was also arranging child marriages eh? Not sure he deserves to be made a saint, perhaps a Catholic one

So you admit then that the smoking law is now excluding an industry's best customers.

Cheers, that's all we needed to know...

I'll use your favourite new saying "business is war" to point out that in a war, the more you are restricted in how you fight your battles, the less likely you are to "win". The smoking ban is a restriction on the way that businesses can choose to run and just makes it that much harder to succeed. Now you may think that's fair, but I don't.

People here argue as if bars have been forced to allow smoking in their premises up until this point, when in reality they have chosen to allow it because it makes them more money...

No, I'd assume they'd previously allowed smoking because that's the way it always was. Fortunately we're moving on now. Most of us.

As it has across many other countries without the hysterics we have here. People who are addicted to tobacco are not an exculsively Munich problem you know.

So no fucking wonder that the industry is trying to fight it, right?

I believe that 'smoking clubs' have appeared in France, although all the bars I've been to have conformed with one creating a separate smoking room that's open sometimes.

They allowed it because nobody said it was bad for their other customers. They used to sell booze to children, should they still do that? Hygiene standards used to be woeful, it was cheaper that way. The drink driving laws caused loss of business too. Things change and the smoking ban is the latest change and a change for the better. The law was badly implemented and needs tightening up not dropping.

That is only natural but it is also natural for society to attempt to curb the exploitation of individuals.

How about loosening the law and allowing separate smoking rooms?


What? Which individuals are being exploited?

I don't consider it necessary, smokers can go outside for a quick puff like they are doing now and like they do in Britain and Ireland and Italy and just about anywhere else that has smoking bans. The smoking ban works fine except for these ridiculous smoking clubs which should be outlawed as soon as possible, that way Monks Towns customers can go back to the bar they like instead of having to go to a bar that is exploiting a loophole.

I don't really understand what the problem was. Smoking is really cool. I started smoking to emulate people like Humphrey Bogart and James Dean, and I've never looked back. Why would anyone want to not enjoy a beer surrounded by a pleasant fug of tobacco smoke?

I believe a popular reference is to those who have to work in such establishments.


Once they sort out the toilets - surely if you can smell faeces along the bar as he claims then that must be a health and safety issue as well?

I'd like to be a cowboy, but I don't smoke

Because, for the nth time:

1) They don't really work.
2) Even if that were the way the law was implemented, we'd still hear the likes of MonksTown and other pub owners complaining about the advantages this gives larger establishments over the local pub (which wouldn't really be able to implement this strategy due to cost and space issues).
3) It does not solve the problem of employee exposure.

Say what you like, the reason the law is running into problems now is because some establishments are using a loophole to gain a competitive advantage over others. MonksTown even admits to this, as he mentions patrons going to smoking club bars. Were everyone to be equally subject to the ban, as is the spirit to the law, they would be competing on a level playing field.

Rampant usage of this loophole doesn’t mean that the law should be thrown out however, no more than the rampant usage of tax shelters means we should do away with taxes. It means individuals should be prevented from using the loophole.

And why is it a competitive advantage? Because that's what the punters want...

SOME of the punters want. You were arguing earlier that not all punters are equal though, so carry on...

"competitive advantage" and "should be legal" are not synonymous phrases, so that is hardly convincing.

Well if more of the punters wanted smoke free places, then not only would the establishments not worry about finding any loopholes now, there would never have been a need for the law anyway, as most places would have been smoke free of their own accord.

So while I accept that it's obviously not ALL punters, it's definitely MOST punters.

Well the bars themselves want to allow smoking and most of the punters want it, so what's the government doing, stepping in and banning it? Obviously their intervention in this is not wanted by all bar owners and most bar patrons...

Seeing how this thread is developing there's one noisy pro-smoking claiming the majority and several antis. Perhaps reality is different, but I feel that, even in Germany, the majority of the population are non-smokers. Now, going back to the relative value of people you were talking about earlier - smokers are more important, right?

Are you sure? Seems like quite a confident assertation to me. Obviously I'm not in Munich but is it really that different there to the 'rest of civilisation as we know it'?

To a pub, smokers are more important. Take 3 minutes and research the correlation between alcohol consumption and smoking. Smokers drink more, end of. They also fuck more.

If a business wants to target smokers, then they should be free to do so - just like lingerie shops target women and toy shops target children.

Now that doesn't stop anyone from another group from becoming a customer. If they really are unhappy that they aren't a part of the target group, then they shouldn't do any business there. If there are enough people who want a business to cater more for their needs, eventually some bright spark is going to notice that and open a business that caters for that or if it's an existing business, change his business model.

The wonders of a free market...

Like with a bow and arrow or what?

As a former waiter and bartender - they also tip better.

See, if it wasn't for smokers, Lilplatinum would've been living on the streets. I hope you antis think about that.

Ok, we're making progress here, perhaps. You've dropped previous arguments in favour of the 'freedom to trade' idea but this argument is precisely about freedom, but from another tack - the freedom of bar employees to work in an environment that is not hazardous to their health.