Paris (Jan. 17, 2008) -- I'll get this out of the way early; smoking is bad for you. I recommend no one should smoke. It's stupid and costly and this city I live in just a few weeks ago decided that it should be banned in bars and cafes. Fair enough, I thought.
I also figured that these people who don't (usually) pick up dog crap on the sidewalk or display (usually) common manners would shrug and keep on smoking where ever they pleased.
Wow, was I wrong.
The bars and cafes are as sterile as hospital wards.
At first, I thought that the law would evaporate if only because during the first days my crazy neighbor Thomas, who is the embodiment of George Castanza (no job) and Cosmo Kramer (no desire to find one), was smoking at will in bars where it was completely obvious that he was smoking and the only one who was smoking. But he and the rest of the population seems to have settled down.
Even Le Fumoir (a painfully hip resturant/bar which means the smoking room in French) is now filled with nothing but fresh air and dropping names. Watch your feet!
One British newspaper had an article a few Sundays ago that quoted some French deep thinker who was against the smoking ban as saying that telling on another person for smoking reminded him of the days when the Nazis occupied Paris and informers were rewarded for ratting out resistance fighters. Only the French. Really, it's quite impressive this jumping of anolgies.
Another philosopher -- they have plenty of them over here -- said that the neighborhood cafe was the only place where everyone, regardless of race, went for coffee and so without the smoking this would be lost. I think he was talking about smaller towns. I'm not sure how this is valid, however, since just about 70 percent, regardless of class, smokes over here and so all the classes will now be hudled outside in the cold.
Which bring me to the next point of how stupid it was to start this new decree in January. The year in Paris starts over in September when everyone returns from their month long vacation at the beach. (Right, you think I'm making this up. Not one bit.)For me, the ban has made me go outside of bars and restaurants more often to smoke and it has made me consider more seriously my need to quit smoking.
I will say, though, that slow service from aloof waiters is more tolerable when you can just light up another smoke and perform one of the famous French shrugs that involves the open palms of the hands and an up and down motion of the shoulders.
C'est comme ca, we say. That's how it is, this slow service. So however nice the fresh air is, I can't help but mourn the loss of the smoky French cafe. In a way it's what made Paris different from Dublin or London or New York or Louisville.
Now they seem all the same to me.
