Smoking ban in Amsterdam

As of July 1, 2008, there is a smoking ban in place for places of business in the Netherlands. This means we can go out to a restaurant or bar and come home without smelling like an ashtray. The year or so leading up to this rule, we couldn't believe that this would ever happen. Smoking is so ingrained in Dutch culture, no less than in the "bruin cafés" here that are so called because decades of cigarette smoke have stained the walls brown. Every night that we would go out, we would stink. Some places were worse than others, but they all stunk. A few times I went out with some Dutch girls on a Sunday afternoon for coffee or a wine, and they would smoke me out. Chain smoke 5 cigarettes in my face in the space of two hours. I would come home at 4pm and have to take a second shower. People are not supposed to smell like that on Sundays. It was so horrific that I avoided Sundays in bars/restaurants from that point on. Until now.

We had actually just gotten back from picking up our friends Halsey and Natalie from the airport on the night the ban went into effect. The airline had lost their luggage, so we went to our corner bar for them to decompress. We managed some seats on the side terrace, and it was a beautiful night. At midnight, our party was crashed when two guys left the bar to smoke outside. They explained that as of that point on, there was no more smoking allowed in bars, and though the bartender hadn't asked them to leave, they were being corteous by stepping outside. We asked if they could be courteous elsewhere, and they could.

There was some debating from the Dutch smokers. Many claimed that the bars wouldn't enforce it, and some even said they would get around it by making all of their employees part owners. This is because the smoking ban is not made to protect patrons from harmful and disgusting second-hand smoke, but employees, and if all employess were owners and all owners agreed to smoking in the establishment, then it would be allowed. But so far that hasn't been the case. Even Paradiso and Melkweg, the small concert halls in Amsterdam that are on a membership-basis, have disallowed smoking inside. Finally we can come home and not have to wash our pillowcases the very next day.

Matt in particular has decided to use this power shift even more to the nonsmoker's advantage. We won't sit quietly anymore. It's 2008, and it's been over 50 years since the link between smoking and lung cancer was first discussed. Since then, it's been linked to even more health problems. Smokers are no less knowledgeable about these than non-smokers - they just choose to ignore it. It's the equivalent of injecting people with viruses, and it shouldn't be tolerated.