Posted 9/12/2007 12:22:00 PM by Douglas

The Museum of Smoking in Paris is, of course, a non-smoking facility:

The ostensible purpose of Le Musée du Fumeur is to demonstrate how global attitudes toward smoking have developed and transformed over the years. Yet its cluttered formality can leave visitors with the impression that smoking is in fact an archaic practice, long-since vanished from mainstream society. And given current trends, it might not be long before cigarette smoking indeed does become extinct — at least in the public spaces of progressive, First World cities like Paris.

Not too long ago, public smoking bans were regarded as a uniquely American phenomenon — a puritanical gesture, held in ridicule by any self-respecting, Gauloise-puffing Frenchman. Over time, however, the public health burden of smoking-related illnesses has spurred a number of industrialized nations to follow the American example. When the initial steps of a public smoking ban took effect in Paris this February, French opinion polls reported that 70 percent of Parisians were in favor of the prohibition.

And then there's this little nugget of sunshine from England. I don't think smoke-free pubs will be the death of English literature, but I enjoy the connection.

Nowadays, this harmless experience would cost the publican £1,200, and Tennyson himself £600, while appallingly self-righteous non-smokers at neighbouring tables, rather than being pleased that they had enjoyed a glimpse of the greatest Victorian poet, would be complaining about the fumes which they chose to believe were causing them some kind of damage.

My wife and I have found formerly much-loved pubs all but empty or, worse, filled with middle-class eight-year-olds sitting on the bar stools, slurping J2O through straws and giving their views on global warming in the high-pitched tones of Fulham or Hampstead.

The grizzled old smokers of yore are still smoking, but, rather than enjoy one another's companionship, they sit melancholily at home with their six-packs and watch telly. It is no substitute for the pleasure (albeit sometimes a boring pleasure - an oxymoron which all pub-goers will recognize as apt) of meeting real people.

I experienced my first smoke-free Houston bar yesterday, and the experience was utterly joyless. Not only were the number of patrons diminished by about a third, but those that were there didn't much seem like they wanted to be. Add that on top of the whining guy that claims he couldn't go to a bar before the ban because smoke makes him sick, and you've a well-rounded crowd of boring people sure to live long, uninteresting lives. Is this new throng of bar patrons going to be able to support their local neighborhood bars when smokers stay home? Time will tell, but I'll bet that the majority of these people go to a bar at most once a month. Imagine the surprise on their face when they go for that next drink in six months and find their bar closed. At least no one was smoking in there when they went out of business.