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Ireland Pubs To go "Smoke Free" on March 29th
Francie O’Connor has been coming into smoke-filled Dublin pubs as long as he can remember, once at his father’s side, now at his son’s. For him, a pint and a cigarette go hand in hand. No longer. Inspired by similar restrictions in California and New York City, Ireland will become the first country in Europe to crack down on public smoking, the government announced Wednesday. As of March 29, smoking will be forbidden in all enclosed workplaces -- including the country’s 10,000 pubs.

Thirty percent of Irish adults smoke, but opinion polls indicate the plan has widespread support. To hard-core smokers and traditionalists like O’Connor, however, it’s something close to sacrilege. "A man comes to a pub for a bit of happiness in his life. It can be more of a home than your own home," the 59-year-old handyman said between drags on his Marlboro Light, his son Daithi adopting an identical pose on the bench beside him. "If the goal is to live longer and less happily, well, we’re on the right road."

Pub owners have threatened to challenge the government in court to delay or water down the ban. They argue that it will drive away up to half of their customers -- not just the smokers, but the smokers’ friends. But Health Minister Micheal Martin, a nonsmoker who rarely ventures into a pub, has dismissed proposals to create separate smoking sections with modernized ventilation systems. He says such measures don’t lessen the damage done to the bar staff obliged to work among smokers. He stressed Wednesday that nothing could protect people from secondhand smoke besides an outright ban. He dismissed the pub owners’ predictions and noted he has the support of the unions representing bar staff. "I am confident that people will adjust, just as they did when cinemas, theaters, hairdressing salons, airplanes and numerous other settings went smoke-free," he said.
"As we all know, the very smell of a cigarette'll kill yez. And don't even mention a pipe!"
In the most upscale quarters of southside Dublin, some pubs have embraced the plans as an opportunity to redesign, creating terraces with gas heaters to encourage smokers to sit outdoors and beyond the ban’s reach. But on the rougher-hewn north side, most pubs remain blue-collar and plain, and the scent of smoke tends to hit as soon as the door opens. In the Hut pub in Phibsborough on Wednesday, about a dozen lunchtime customers sat at the long oak bar or in simple tables in the back. Every group had at least one smoker. The barman said he didn’t want to talk about the ban, but his customers couldn’t stop. "If you try to get rid of the smokers, this pub will be more empty than a seminary," Seamus Mahony said. "You’ll live to a ripe ol’ age. In the poor house."

"It’ll never happen," said Gina Lawlor, 42, a bank teller on a break. "It’s bad enough I can’t have a smoke at work,"
Don't bet on it, Gina...
"The government will have a revolution on its hands. I’ll have Micheal’s head on a pike yet!" blustered John Owens, 27, to the laughter of his drinking mates, all of them telephone company workers in between callouts. "Seriously, though," he said, "I suppose we’ll end up smoking outside. We’ll all die of the cold and that will be that -- no more problem."
Im no big fan of smoking, but if you cant smoke in a pub in ireland, its surely a sign of the coming of the end of the world.
Posted by: Frank Martin 2004-02-18
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=26484