You are in:
- Contents » European Democracy
Hot In Herre
Patio heaters and an unforeseen effect of the smoking ban
Commentators on the EURSOC threads on smoking bans claim thousands of pubs face closure because of the ban; French cafés and nightclubs have seen business drop by 20 percent. Anecdotal evidence by our roaming reporter EURSOC Three suggests that numerous café and bar owners in the Paris region have a gloomy outlook on their future.
This weekend, your correspondent discovered another unforeseen effect of the smoking ban, which has driven French smokers from the bars onto the streets. Staying with friends who live on a street lined with popular bars and cafés, his hosts complained that since the ban was introduced, they have barely had a decent night's sleep: Dozens of smokers congregate outside the bar on the ground floor of their apartment block, and the noise of their gossiping and partying keeps them awake into the early hours.
They complained that their friends have had similar experiences.
Only last year, bars and cafés began placing notices in their windows warning clients to leave the premises as quietly as possible because of complaints from residents living above and around the nightspots. Indeed, in his early days as Interior Minister, President Nicolas Sarkozy warned publicans that he was going to get tough with noisy bars in gentrifying neighbourhoods.
Why, then, has the government pushed through legislation that will make these quartiers noisier still?
Or is this the final plan for smokers: Pushed out into the street by one ban, frozen half to death by the ban on terrace heating, and forced into shamed silence by yet another?
Last week, MEPs voted 526 to 26 in favour of a ban on patio heaters. As we noted at the time, the "ban" is advisory only, though the European Commission will be under pressure to at least investigate a prohibition on sales of the devices, which environmental campaigners claim pump damaging levels of carbon dioxide into the air.
In an excellent column on Sunday, Christopher Booker reported that Tory MEP, Richard Ashworth questioned the wisdom of a ban, writing in a letter to the Daily Telegraph that "the amount of carbon dioxide saved by banning patio heaters in the EU was only slightly less than the amount emitted every year by MEPs themselves, as they engage in the laborious farce of transferring the entire European Parliament every month from Brussels to Strasbourg."
So why then did Ashworth vote for the ban, Booker asks?
The columnist adds that British pubs have invested millions in the patio and terrace heaters, following the Irish experience of the smoking ban: Irish publicans quickly noticed that the only pubs which stayed open after the ban came into force were those who provided smokers with heated outdoor areas. Now, in a pincer movement, smokers and publicans are caught between national governments pushing through smoking bans and the ruling EU authorities considering a ban on terrace heating.
