IN the film All The President's Men, there is a scene where Robert Redford's Bob Woodward says to Dustin Hoffman's Carl Bernstein, as chain-smoker Bernstein lights up while stepping into a lift, "is there anywhere you don't smoke?"
This may be a fair question to most Bulgarians, given the statistic announced at the end of last year that four out of five adult Bulgarians smoke. I assume that when the survey was done, the other one either was sleeping or on the way to buy a packet.
So it is striking news that the Government intends banning smoking in a wide range of public places with effect from the year 2005. I look forward to seeing just how effectively this ban is enforced, given the lunatic experiences elsewhere in the world.
My favourite tale is one that took place in Cape Town shortly after the South African government brought in tough anti-smoking laws. With restaurants, the rule is that no more than 25 per cent of the area may be open for smoking. However, restaurants can apply for exemptions from this rule if they can offer sound arguments.
But we were left wondering what a sound argument is, after an upmarket cigar bar applied for exemption, and was rejected. It made it arguably the only cigar bar in the world where smoking is not allowed on 75 per cent of the premises.
It is rather like making 75 per cent of a brothel a non-sex area ("and what do you think you're doing?") or making 75 per cent of a church a non-worshipping area ("put that bloody candle out").
In San Francisco, I stayed in a non-smoking hotel, meaning that every cigarette meant trekking down from the fifth floor to the street, or facing paying a $300 fine and being evicted. I noticed that hotels were on the list announced by the Bulgarian Government - one can only wonder whether they really are going to impose a 100 per cent ban, or whether every last country hotel will have to install smoke-detectors, or at least appoint an Official Sniffer, rather like those wizened folk who sit in attendance in public toilets in Singapore to make sure you flush.
An inventive Cape Town coffee shop owner, noting that his clients mainly were smokers, resorted to declaring his outdoor area the non-smoking area in winter, with the reverse true in summer. It is not difficult to imagine many Bulgarian coffee shops following suit.
In conjunction with the Bulgarian Government's plan announced recently to progressively up the price of cigarettes rather steeply in the next few years, it seems that national symbol, the smouldering cigarette, will become an endangered species. Making life so difficult for smokers could reduce Bulgartabac to a cottage industry.
Perhaps the Bulgarian Government could buy a few thousand copies of the software sold on the internet for about $20, designed to discourage smoking. Although it is for adults and children, it has a bent towards the latter group, in the form of a video game in which wizards, pterodactyls and so forth appear to "blast away your silly excuses" for smoking. To convert you to true non-smoking militancy, the game also allows you to destroy a tobacco factory piece by piece. Why did the word "Bulgartabac" just come to mind again?
It's not that the demand for non-smoking facilities isn't genuine. On the internet, any number of guest houses and hotels boast that they are fully non-smoking (though none in Bulgaria, that I could find). In Wales there's a guest house that affirms it is not only non-smoking, but also fully Vegan. A week in a non-smoking, Vegan guest house in Wales? I am sure there's a market, but I can't imagine there'll be many Bulgarians among them.
Meanwhile, in contrast to the usual barrage of medical evidence about the perils of smoking, have come claims that non-smokers have a 3.5 times higher chance than smokers of getting ulcerative colitis, a thoroughly nasty illness. I am not sure who funded and publicised this research, but my suspicious mind leads me to think their products may be tube-shaped, in packs of 20.
So the winds of change are blowing, for good and bad, and while non-smoking laws may be enforced with the lack of efficiency of most Bulgarian law enforcement, higher prices will be a more powerful disincentive. For those who continue to smoke, life is going to get a bit more outdoorsy, and for those who do not, if the research is to be believed, a lot of conversations will be taking place standing up.
This may be a fair question to most Bulgarians, given the statistic announced at the end of last year that four out of five adult Bulgarians smoke. I assume that when the survey was done, the other one either was sleeping or on the way to buy a packet.
So it is striking news that the Government intends banning smoking in a wide range of public places with effect from the year 2005. I look forward to seeing just how effectively this ban is enforced, given the lunatic experiences elsewhere in the world.
My favourite tale is one that took place in Cape Town shortly after the South African government brought in tough anti-smoking laws. With restaurants, the rule is that no more than 25 per cent of the area may be open for smoking. However, restaurants can apply for exemptions from this rule if they can offer sound arguments.
But we were left wondering what a sound argument is, after an upmarket cigar bar applied for exemption, and was rejected. It made it arguably the only cigar bar in the world where smoking is not allowed on 75 per cent of the premises.
It is rather like making 75 per cent of a brothel a non-sex area ("and what do you think you're doing?") or making 75 per cent of a church a non-worshipping area ("put that bloody candle out").
In San Francisco, I stayed in a non-smoking hotel, meaning that every cigarette meant trekking down from the fifth floor to the street, or facing paying a $300 fine and being evicted. I noticed that hotels were on the list announced by the Bulgarian Government - one can only wonder whether they really are going to impose a 100 per cent ban, or whether every last country hotel will have to install smoke-detectors, or at least appoint an Official Sniffer, rather like those wizened folk who sit in attendance in public toilets in Singapore to make sure you flush.
An inventive Cape Town coffee shop owner, noting that his clients mainly were smokers, resorted to declaring his outdoor area the non-smoking area in winter, with the reverse true in summer. It is not difficult to imagine many Bulgarian coffee shops following suit.
In conjunction with the Bulgarian Government's plan announced recently to progressively up the price of cigarettes rather steeply in the next few years, it seems that national symbol, the smouldering cigarette, will become an endangered species. Making life so difficult for smokers could reduce Bulgartabac to a cottage industry.
Perhaps the Bulgarian Government could buy a few thousand copies of the software sold on the internet for about $20, designed to discourage smoking. Although it is for adults and children, it has a bent towards the latter group, in the form of a video game in which wizards, pterodactyls and so forth appear to "blast away your silly excuses" for smoking. To convert you to true non-smoking militancy, the game also allows you to destroy a tobacco factory piece by piece. Why did the word "Bulgartabac" just come to mind again?
It's not that the demand for non-smoking facilities isn't genuine. On the internet, any number of guest houses and hotels boast that they are fully non-smoking (though none in Bulgaria, that I could find). In Wales there's a guest house that affirms it is not only non-smoking, but also fully Vegan. A week in a non-smoking, Vegan guest house in Wales? I am sure there's a market, but I can't imagine there'll be many Bulgarians among them.
Meanwhile, in contrast to the usual barrage of medical evidence about the perils of smoking, have come claims that non-smokers have a 3.5 times higher chance than smokers of getting ulcerative colitis, a thoroughly nasty illness. I am not sure who funded and publicised this research, but my suspicious mind leads me to think their products may be tube-shaped, in packs of 20.
So the winds of change are blowing, for good and bad, and while non-smoking laws may be enforced with the lack of efficiency of most Bulgarian law enforcement, higher prices will be a more powerful disincentive. For those who continue to smoke, life is going to get a bit more outdoorsy, and for those who do not, if the research is to be believed, a lot of conversations will be taking place standing up.
