Smoking ban in Denmark - Fat chance

and in the US the same has been attempted,  eventually they get tired of paying the fines and take the hit on the business loss.

I wish your country success in their attempt to maintain their freedom. 

Fume in pace, ckr

I would expect the fines would become too great or too many eventually, but it seems the Danish government doesn't have the resources to check up on the establishments.

Thank you for your well wishes.

Lars Wiberg (slartie) | http://slartie.wordp... | http://www.flickr.co...

Must be why you live in Sweden.

I thought this smoking ban in public places was the result of a EU directive.  So, obviously, that's not a very democratic process or decision, but one has to suffer a bit if one wants to belong to the Cool Guys Club.

I'm sure you'll let us know if there'll be any change in policy ;-) 

Cheers!

Corneel Vermeulen

http://pipelore.net

The ban is indeed the result of yet another EU directive - however fanaticism has helped hype things and help everything along, much to the dismay or normal sensible people who know better.

My reasons for living in Sweden are neither political nor directly proportional to my liking or disliking my country. Pure economics did it for me .. Stay in Denmark or save 60% on housing 30 minutes across the bridge - tough call.

As an update to the ban itself - it still doesn't look like the ban is being respected in the bar business.

Lars Wiberg (slartie) | http://slartie.wordp... | http://www.flickr.co...
Currently reading: Dean Koontz - Sole Survivor | Books read this year: 0

There is a major outpooring by the liberal left for more big government and nationalized health care.  This is a back lash of such a system, the more the government contributes the more authority they seem to have over your life.  The logic becomes, if your health problems cost us (the government) money, we reserve the right to regulate smoking, drinking, pork fat, failure to exercise vigorously at least three times a week or anything else we can think of that has been proven to cause illness in even one human since the dawn of man kind. 

As much a mess as health care in my country is, this, socialistic approach will be an even bigger mess.  I want to smoke 3 lbs of pipe tobacco a month, I want to eat pig fat stuffed between two donuts and drink a case of beer a week.  Sorry issues of this sort are just not the government's business.  Sadly though, even in my country, smokers are held in worse disdain than heroin addicts.  Locally several beaches banned smoking on the beach OUTSIDE!  Hell, it's bad enough you can't drink beer on the beach any more.  I can't even sit on a lawn chair and enjoy my pipe on the beach.

Same thing happened here in New York State. Bar owners tried to buck the system, but eventually they tired of the fines also, so we wound up with non smoking bars.

Not many places anymore that you can smoke, hell, we are not even allowed to smoke in open air stadiums.

Ohh well.

They have now created a task force in Denmark. This group of people will go door to door in all Danish places of business and check if people respect the smoking ban.

*synchronized trampling boots*

All a sad state of affairs if you ask me.  Who knew 30 years ago that we'd have the tobacco gustapo goose stepping from business to business making sure no one is smoking?  What senseless expenditure of time and money all over the world to squelch a custom hundreds of years old and persecute those of us who enjoy the use of tobacco products from time to time.  And a smoking ban on Europeans, wow!  on this side of the pond the anti-tobacco nazis have been out for quite some time but it is truely disheartening to see even European countries follow suit with the insanity.

The cancer groups around here really got things rolling once those insane tobacco company lawsuits to everybody's surprised fell in favor of the disgruntled ex-smokers. When a lawsuit much closer to home (Norway I believe), shit really hit the fan and the cancer movements went on a rampage.

Same happened here Lars. Both the Health Department and the ATF (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco & Firearms) would send undercover agents into bars to nail them for smoking violations. As I recall, the fines were quite stiff.

There were many creative efforts to avoid the smoking bans, some successfully, others not. One common practice was for bars to collect a dollar amount $1-2 from patrons, provide them with an ashtray and allow them to smoke. If the bar was busted, the money collected would help offset the fines. Another local bar was very creative. They had a side entrance that actually was a different address from the bar itself. They would allow smoking in the hallway of that entrance, which would not be a violation because of the address discrepancy.

My hope was that like Prohibition in the 30's, the smoking bans would loose their luster, but in an age of Tofu and Power bars, and people believing everything they read about second hand smoke, I feel these laws may be here to stay. Only time will tell though.

Statistics in New York State also hurt smokers. They showed that there was no drop in revenue or attendance at bars and restaurants, on the contrary, there was a resurgence of customers and business. Then again, not to sound like a conspiracy theorist, this could just be government propaganda, kind of like the second hand smoke mumbo jumbo.

Oh well, we fight another day !

was when NJ (?) or maybe it was Delaware passed the law banning smoking tobacco products.  When it went into effect they failed at several tactics.  Then a realization occured and all the bars were passing out herbal cigarettes.  Of course the ACS and AHA went bullshit and immediately claimed that smoke from herbal cigarettes is just as dangerous.  Yea, tons of research behind that statement and probably as accurate as the rest of the bullshit regarding SHS.  Anyway,  the herbal cigarette smoking was perfectly legal and the idiots had to re lobby and pay off the whores again to get it changed to smoking of any kind.  Now if the ACS and AHA were putting this money into research I suspect that we would have much more effective treatment for cancer.  Something a bit more effective than pumping someone full of poison and bringing them an inch or so from death.

Big Pharma is also the blame, natural treatments that are more effective are ignored.  They spent tens of millions trying to systhesize extracts from the Graviola bush but since the synthesized product was no where as effective as the natural product they quietly sweep the research under the carpet.  They can't patient a natural product and make money, not to mention hurt the chemo industry.  We only get the best care money can pay for.