Spot the difference: how Paris is coming to terms with the public smoking ban

Friday February 18, 2011

Visiting Paris for the first time in ten years, Peter Thurgood observes how the city’s bars, cafes and residents are adapting to the public smoking ban

Paris was, and probably always will be, one of my favourite cities. I love its beauty, its quirkiness, and most of all its rebelliousness. No one, with the exception of armed Nazi stormtroopers, have ever managed to get the upper hand of the Parisians. If their taxes were raised too much, they would take to the streets, if bus fares went up, they would do the same, not to mention pensions and countless other things.

So how, I wondered, would I find the situation regarding the smoking ban. How would the rebellious citizens of this great city react to being told what to do and where to do it? I had read the usual reports that the majority are very pleased with the ban as they all wanted to give up smoking anyway and, as we all know, ‘it is so good for both ours and our children’s health’.

My last visit to Paris was at least ten years ago when this beautiful city, along with the rest of Europe, was still relatively free. World War II had ended some 56 years earlier and the fall of the Berlin Wall had signalled the demise of communism and opened the door to what we thought was going to be a Europe completely free from tyranny.

Joke

Just before that last trip to Paris I had visited New York thinking, as one would, that I was visiting the land of the free. How naïve I was. That lovely old cigar store on Mulberry Street, complete with the antique wooden Indian standing serenely outside, I simply had to go in there, but this was my first ever glimpse of the now famous, or should that be infamous, circular ‘no smoking’ sign which was stuck on the door of the shop. It must be some sort of joke, I told myself, but the two elderly men who ran the shop didn’t see it as any sort of joke at all. “It’s Mayor Bloomberg,” they told me, “he’s not just ruining our business, but nearly all the bars and restaurants in this city as well.”

Luckily for me I managed to find a bar just down the street where the owner, an old time Mafia associate I was told, chomped away on his cigar whilst serving me and the hundreds of other happy customers who still valued our freedom. This one bastion of freedom in such a huge city, however, did not endear me to make a return visit to New York City, or indeed any other part of the USA, for I vowed there and then never to return. A vow I have adhered to, to this day.

Paris, however, was a completely different thing, alongside every other city and indeed country in Europe. Maybe it was because Europe, unlike the USA, had a long history of being invaded and fighting oppression on every front. Liberty, I convinced myself, was what Europe was all about. After all, wasn’t libertarianism itself born here in Europe?

We did of course have the EEC, which had developed from the early 1950s version of what was then known as the Common Market, and even then there were a number of prominent British politicians warning us of the dangers involved if we immersed ourselves too deeply into what they saw as a new super power in the making.

Ignored

I am sorry to say that I, like thousands if not millions of others, sat back and ignored these warnings. I was far too busy, sitting in one or other of the typical Parisian bars, enjoying a drink and a cigarette, or maybe relaxing in a restaurant, with a beautiful Havana cigar, after finishing a first class meal. The world of oppression that we know, and so many accept today, was a million light years away, or so we thought. The cleansing programme that I had witnessed on the other side of the Atlantic couldn’t possibly happen here, could it?

Reminiscing on this now is almost akin to what many people in Europe were thinking back in the 1930s. “It can’t happen to us” they said, “the free community would never allow it”, but as we now know it did happen to them and, as we also know, the so called free community, the true Libertarian has been sidelined off, into the shadows, and is frightened to speak its mind where freedom is concerned.

Back in the heady, early days of the 21st century, however, all of this was pure conjecture. Just to walk into a Parisian café and smell the strong black coffee and the beautiful aromatic smell of a Gauloise cigarette was pure heaven; it wouldn’t be Paris without this, and who could argue with this? Even non-smokers mixed happily with those who chose to smoke; there were never any animosity between these groups, such as we see today in London; smoking and Paris went hand in hand.

What then, I wondered, would this beautiful city have in store for me when I returned there two weeks ago? Would it shatter all my early dreams of the city of freedom and rebelliousness? Would I pair this city with New York, vowing never to return there also?

Trepidation

With all this in mind, it was with a certain amount of fear and trepidation that I alighted from the Eurostar train at La Gare du Nord in the heart of Paris. Would I be searched to see if I had a cigarette lighter on me, and would it be confiscated and broken up in front of me, as had happened a couple of years ago at Gatwick Airport when one of their over-zealous security guards had snatched my Zippo lighter and broken it in half in front of me while he explained that such an item could, and probably would, bring the plane down. This was at the same time as allowing other passengers to carry ordinary disposable cigarette lighters onto the plane. (I must add that I did complain to BAA about this, and they did apologise for the incident and eventually compensated me for the lighter.)

I looked eagerly around the concourse at the station in the hope of seeing a rebel or two, puffing away merrily, but all I saw were the universal circular signs, depicting a cigarette with a thick red line drawn through it, that were stuck on ever door. A glimmer of hope arose once I had found myself down on the Metro, for I counted at least half a dozen cigarette butts, and this was in spite of yet more circular signs and the ubiquitous CCTV cameras, meaning the famous French Resistance were still alive and well, and operating here in the centre of Paris. All I had to do now was find their headquarters, or at least where their individual cells operated from.

My first port of call was the Marais district where a good (non-smoking) friend lives. Plenty of people smoking on the streets, but this is a particularly arty area with many young people living there, who do seem to be the predominant age group for smokers, so not much I could gain from this perspective. As it was approaching lunchtime we decided to go to a nearby market which had a number of cheapish restaurants and bars there, which my friend assured me were very good.

Noticed

The first thing I noticed was that almost every bar/restaurant, had outside seating, with patio heaters and a plastic awning around it. The second thing I noticed were the ashtrays on every table. Could this be the headquarters of the French Resistance? Whatever it was, I was determined to enter, and hopefully join up.

Inside the area cordoned off by the plastic awning, it was comfortable and warm, and the waitress accepted me and my smoking habit with a friendly smile and no irritating hand waving in front of her face, which we seem to experience in the UK. Other customers came and went, some smoked, some didn’t, but the atmosphere at all times was warm and friendly, just the opposite to the intolerance smokers are subjected to here in the UK.

I went to a number of other restaurants, bars, and cafes and, at a guess, I would say that approximately 80 per cent of them had this same type of plastic awning surrounding their outside seating area. In other words, the needs and comforts of smokers are well and truly catered for. Also catered for are the needs of the non-smokers who have the whole of the inside of the building, which is normally half empty compared with the outside area, in which to enjoy their self-imposed segregation, if they so wish.

Late at night outside areas in the bars that cater for the young and trendy crowd get so full that the crowds spill over onto the pavements, with at least 80 to 90 per cent of them smoking.

When I visited a tabac, and bought a few cigars to take home with me, I was greeted with a smile and made to feel like an important customer. I was even given a cigar cutter to go with them. This reminded me so much of how things used to be in the UK before our smoking ban came into force.

Happy

To sum up my views of Paris and the smoking ban, I would say that they are handling it very well. Both smokers and non-smokers seem to be happy about the way it is being handled and, speaking for myself, I will most definitely return!

Since the ban was introduced in the UK there have been a number of attempts to overturn the law, or to amend it. I think this Parisian idea of using these plastic shelters should be adapted here. The plastic is thick to keep in the warmth, and in strips so that it cannot be construed as providing a solid wall, therefore bringing it within British law which states that a smoking area should not have more than a roof and one wall. We must go for it, it would solve so many problems!

I will be going back to Spain in a few weeks, for the first time since they brought in their ban. From the little dribs and drabs of information that I have been hearing, I will hopefully find my beloved Spain on a par with Paris. We will have to wait and see.