March 30, 2003
The air that I breathe
It's something you notice when you wake up after a night out in Ireland, even if you haven't been drinking. Your clothes smell like an ashtray and your lungs feel like they are full of gravel. In fact, it's a good judge of how authentic an 'Irish pub' abroad is if it matches the same nicotine levels as establishments in the mother country.
The Observer describes how New York smokers cannot smoke in bars or restaurants from today, by law. It is a situation that may soon prevail in Ireland. Ever since the Department of Health released a study that showed passive smoking was unhealthy, the Minister has been preparing to bring in a sweeping smoking ban in pubs and restaurants.
The move is being driven, as always, by a fear of litigation. Bar & restaurant staff will be able to sue their employers (and possibly the Government, since everybody else does) if legislation is not introduced and enforced. Fianna Fáil backbenchers have called for a compromise because…well, it would be handier to do nothing.
There is some hope. The New York law allows for small smoking rooms adjacent to the bar to be available for smokers. Well, Irish pubs have been equipped with such technology for years. It's called a snug. Most of them have been ripped out of pubs in the last few years in order to stuff more people in, but I confidently predict a comeback.
Of course, most pubs used to have small rooms in which drinkers could deposit their womenfolk (and to which they were confined), but that's against the law these days too. The law, eh?