Ban on smoking...

I know, in the meatime it's quite late writing about this topic because the new so called law for the ban on smoking became effective more than two weeks ago but it's worth to talk about it, even two weeks later.

They call it law but I think in real it's just a media gag to take the piss out of non smokers. If you have a look out in the restaurants, pubs, clubs,... in Vienna you will know what I mean. But perhaps it's a typical "Austrian solution", who knows? We are famous for our solutions which in truth are no solutions because everything stays as it was before. And the same happened with the ban on smoking in Austria. If you are looking for non-smoking areas in restaurants you have to take care, that you choose a quite large one where you know that there are at least two separate rooms in it. Otherwise you will still have to breathe that smoky air during eating your 'Schnitzel mit Erdäpfelsalat'. The same applies for clubs - they have all chosen the transition period of, I don't know how many years, to separate a non-smoking from a smoking area. And most of the pubs are too small and mainly all of the owners have chosen the smoking option. So what has changed in real life?

There are lots of good examples worldwide where the ban of smoking worked with a real solution and smoking was banned simply in every locality. What went wrong in our country again? Or do the Austrians simply like their solutions and want to stick to them in future as well? 

The only thing that has changed is that now there are lots of coloured stickers on the doors of all the restaurants and pubs and cafés and clubs as well. I think the Austrian legislation just wanted to make our lifes more colourful and delight us with coloured stickers to pimp our entrances... perhaps to overcome the crisis more easily, who knows?