Bavaria relaxes smoking regulations
Thursday, July 16, 2009 "Smokers in Bavaria rejoiced on Wednesday as the state’s parliament loosened the regulations on a smoking ban instituted 18 months ago." The new regulations are said to reflect reality and Bavaria’s “live and let live” attitude. Story HERE.
Funnily enough, we recently commissioned an article by musician and writer Joe Jackson. A supporter of Forest and the campaign to amend the smoking ban, Joe now lives in Berlin. He is currently on tour but took time out to write an 800-word article comparing British pubs and German bars. Here's a taste:
I’ve always loved pubs, but just how awful they are becoming wasn’t completely clear to me until I relocated a couple of years ago to Berlin. While too many English pubs these days are soulless, generic commercial enterprises, staffed by people who clearly don’t give a damn, Berlin bars are often wonderfully idiosyncratic, and operated and patronised by people who clearly love them.
In my neighbourhood there are, for instance, a bar run by a Frank Zappa lookalike who brews his own beer, a surreal dive run by an Albanian refugee who has Gypsy musicians playing on the street outside, a bar where patrons sit outside in an ex-Soviet Army jeep, and the world’s campiest gay bar, whose walls and ceilings are lined with pink fur.
Many bars are just holes in the wall, furnished with flea market junk, but made welcoming with a few candles, a few flowers, some local artwork, good music or good beer. Most allow smoking, though some don’t and others have separate rooms. They also keep their prices reasonable, keep their vodka in the freezer, serve mojitos in the summer and hot chocolate laced with rum in the winter, and open and close whenever they like. And why not? We’re adults, aren’t we?!
The full article will be published shortly. Watch this space.
Reader Comments (3)
Simon,
Sorry, this is a bit OT. But on the publican, Greg Mulholland MP Planning for the future of the pub. Greg is advocating changing planning laws to save pubs, rather than thinking of ways to get customers into pubs! I think he wants to turn pubs into smokefree museums!
I have just left a post on the Publican web site.
Mr Mulholland's article is quite curious. He seems to be most interested in the idea of PRESERVING pubs. He seems to have no interest in financial viability. What makes him think that planning laws can force a pub which is not profitable to stay open beats me. Of course, he may only be thinking of preserving the empty BUILDING.
It looks a little to me as though Mr Mulholland is suffering from 'Politician Survival Syndrom' (PSS, for short). This is a genuine mental illness which inflicts politicians - they cannot help it.
It involves the following mental process:-
When confronted by a simple problem with a simple solution, but you do not like the solution,
1. Think of as many minor complications as you can.
2. Talk a lot about the minor complications.
3. Set up a committee to discuss the minor complications.
4. Kick the problem into the long grass until the committee report.
5. If you do not like the committee report, repeat procedure.
Didn't the Government keep saying that the UK should copy the continental culture of drinking? So why not copy Germany. Spain and others in allowing smoking in pubs, clubs and cafes.