The French respond to their smoking ban.

[High Plains]

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article4159769.ece

French smokers abandon bars, clubs and restaurants for private parties

Smokers in France are uniting to beat a ban on lighting up in public by organising open-house parties where they can puff on their Gauloises until the early hours. The parties, held in flats and houses but also in clandestine clubs, often draw dozens of people for a drink, a chat, a dance and a cigarette. Some are paying, others are free, but all welcome the smokers who are deserting bars, bistrots and night clubs.

The movement has flourished since the introduction of a smoking ban in all public places on January 1, and has been compared to the speakeasies that secretly served alcohol during the Prohibition in the US in the 1920s. Internet networks have sprung up to link the partygoers and inform them of planned festivities.

One such network was created on Facebook by a 30-year-old Gauloises-smoking DJ who gives his name only as Shandor. “We set up the group because of the smoking ban,” he told The Times. “It was clear to us that it was going to be very complicated to go to a nightclub now. “A whole evening without a cigarette is very hard — especially when you're drinking — so you're better off at a party.”

The group — Pour le Grand Retour de la Fête en Appart' en 2008 (“For the Great Comeback of Parties in Flats in 2008”) — originally included a few dozen people. Now it has 1,182 members. “It's taken off so much that we've had to create a second, secret group,” said Shandor. “You can't really have 1,000 people in a small flat.”

<snip>

Vincent Grégoire, artistic director at Nelly Rodi, the trend-forecasting agency, said that a dozen or so secret establishments had been formed in Paris since the smoking ban. “They're halfway between public and private — where you only get in if you're invited by an existing member,” he said. “Sometimes you need a password and you have to pay a membership fee. This all existed before but it has really taken off after the smoking ban. People want to authorise for themselves everything that they're not supposed to do.”

[High Plains]

1. Smoking ban hurts bars and restaurants in France

From the article: France introduced a ban on smoking in the workplace on February 1 last year and extended the measures to its 200,000 bars, cafés and nightclubs 11 months later. They report a drop in custom of between 10 and 20 per cent as a result.

[High Plains]

2. Smoking ban hurts pubs in Britain

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/leisure/article3809693.ece

April 24, 2008

Smoking ban sends Punch Taverns reeling

Punch Taverns, Britain’s largest pub company, announced today a 24 per cent decline in first-half profits as the smoking ban and a crash in consumer confidence kept drinkers at home. The operator of 8,400 leased, tenanted and managed pubs said that like-for-like sales for its leased businesses were down by 2 per cent, with like-for-like sales of the core managed estate declining by 2.8 per cent.

Interim results showed that profits of £133 million, a 1 per cent increase since last year, were reduced by a £19.2 million loss on interest-rate swaps and a one-off redundancy charge of £5 million. Punch said that the results reflected “challenging market conditions” pointing to falling consumer confidence. It said that recent rises in household expenditure such as increases in food and fuel duty, and rising pressures on mortgage repayments, had impacted on the disposable income of its customers.

Punch also said that its profits had been hit by the smoking ban implemented in 2006, which had reduced beer sales over the winter months. Speaking to The Times, Giles Thorley, chief executive of Punch Taverns, said: “We’ve had reasonably robust results despite the impact of the smoking ban."

<snip>

[Carnea]

3. Don't worry I'm sure some French will collaborate.

[High Plains]

4. Meanwhile, in Cleveland:

http://www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080204/NEWS03/802040367

Article published Monday, February 4, 2008
Cleveland underground clubs allowing smoking, sex

ASSOCIATED PRESS


CLEVELAND - Underground nightclubs where patrons can smoke freely and watch strippers after midnight have opened in some of the city's residential neighborhoods since the state began enforcing new restrictions on strip clubs and public smoking last year, police say.

Some of the nightclubs, also called "smokehouses," offer customers the opportunity to have sex with prostitutes, police said.

"They have succeeded in creating this underground, sleazy, cash-only business that cannot be regulated, taxed or secured by police," attorney Skip Lazzaro, who represents legal nightclubs, said.

Informants have told police that patrons are mostly white suburban men. Customers bring their own liquor, cigarettes, and cigars. A reference is sometimes required for entry, and doormen collect as much as $25.

[Bonhomme Richard]

5. Smoking leads to prostitution.

I can just hear the do-gooders now.

[SpiralHawk]

6. Smokeasies - in The USA, under republicons, we'll soon have Thinkeasies

where those who are capable of thinking for themselves will have to sneak off to have a free thought...

Republicon corporate media propagandistas, and kool-aid drinkers not welcome.

[High Plains]

7. Amsterdam coffee shops say tobacco ban is blow to business

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/amsterdam-coffee-shops-say-tobacco-ban-is-blow-to-business-848504.html

The Netherlands' famous coffee shops, where marijuana is available over the counter, face the threat of extinction when the country goes smoke-free on 1 July.


Smoking dope is the raison d'être of the cafes which are scattered across the country, with the greatest and most famous concentration in Amsterdam. But when the tobacco ban comes in, the coffee shops will not be exempt.

This will lead to the paradoxical situation that only pure grass or cannabis resin, which are not covered by the ban, can be legally smoked in the shops.

Anybody rolling a tobacco-based joint will be breaking the law – but only because of the tobacco. "The new rule is nonsense," said Willem Panders, of the Dutch tobacco traders' union. "It will be almost impossible to enforce because how are you going to check if someone is smoking cannabis mixed with tobacco, or pure cannabis?"

But despite desperate lobbying, owners have failed to get the government to make an exception of them. "Coffee shops will be treated in the same manner as other catering businesses," the Prime Minister, Jan Peter Balkanende, said last week. "It would have been wrong to move towards a smoke-free catering industry and then make an exception for coffee shops. People would not have understood that."

<snip>

[pepperbear]

8. wow..SMOKE-EASYS! n/t

[High Plains]

9. We've come a long way, baby. n/t