Germany may not be a smoker's paradise for very much longer

But the country's days as a smoker's paradise could be numbered as pressure mounts for a far-reaching ban on lighting up in restaurants and public places.

Pushing for a ban

*quote1*The office of Agriculture and Consumer Protection Minister Horst Seehofer recently announced that a study was being drawn up which could see a ban come into place next year.

Seehofer has been at the forefront of government efforts to push for a ban, but has met with fierce resistance from the nation's bar and restaurant owners, who fear a loss of business.

He was given limited support from Chancellor Angela Merkel, who threw her weight behind a ban on smoking in public places in order to grant "better protection for non-smokers."

The chancellor, who admitted that she used to smoke a pack a day until giving up over a decade ago, said: "I find the demand for a general smoking ban in public buildings legitimate."

Last of a dying breed

I used to be a pack-a-day woman myself

While most politicians agree that a ban on smoking in public places is necessary, they are divided on the issue of whether it should be extended to include bars and eating places.

"I believe that a radical ban on smoking in the gastronomy sector would be wrong," says Volker Kauder, parliamentary floor leader of Merkel's Christian Democratic Union (CDU).

But Katherina Reich, one of his deputies, disagrees. "We sorely need a smoking ban in public places, bars, restaurants and in public transport," she told the Berliner Zeitung newspaper.

"Pledges by pub and restaurant owners to create more non-smoking areas in their establishments have not worked out," she said.

*sidebar1*Only about 30 per cent of Germany's 100,000 restaurants have no- smoking areas, according to the German Hotel and Restaurant Association, which has promised this will rise to 90 per cent in 2008.

Not a threat to business

Supporters of a ban dismiss claims the gastronomy sector would lose customers and point to the experience of Ireland, where smoking at the workplace has been outlawed since April 2004, and Italy, where a ban was introduced last year.

"Irish smokers still go to the pub for a drink, while some non- smokers find themselves going more often," one supporter told the Berlin newspaper Der Tagesspiegel.

Figures show that almost one-third of adults in Germany smoke regularly and that nearly 140,000 Germans die every year from tobacco-related illnesses. Some 3,300 of the deaths are from passive smoking, according to the German Cancer Research Centre.

 Taxes on tobacco are a lucrative source of income for the government, amounting to more than 14 billion euros (17.5 billion dollars) every year.

There are some 600,000 outdoor cigarette vending machines in Germany, where people of all ages can buy their favourite brand, but the government says 100,000 of them will be dismantled by early next year.

Germany is also been under pressure from the European Union to outlaw tobacco advertising and prohibit cigarette manufacturers from promoting cultural and sporting events.

8 August 2006

Copyright DPA with Expatica 2006

Subject: life in Germany, smoking in Germany, smoking ban