You’d only get second-hand smoking if you spent every day in your life in the tourist hellhole of central Amsterdam. Try going to Germany instead, everything and everyone reeks of cigarettes and they even have vending machines for them in plain sight in amusement parks.
I swear, smokers in Europe have atrocious social graces with no concept of personal space. Even at the busiest and most cramped cafes, they will light up at the table with you or standing next to a doorway, and then act like you’re the problem if you’re annoyed or upset about second hand smoke. Beer gardens and outdoor seating almost universally include a carcinogenic haze, it just ruins the meal/drink imo to be tasting the air between bites
At least in America the social stigma is strong enough where they scurry off to their opium den smoking area and get their nicotine hit with their brethren. Go in peace friend, you do you over there to y’all’s lungs
Sweet summer child, you should have seen Europe at the turn of the century.
I’ve seen doctors pulling out a cigarette and start smoking in the middle of a ward. Any place you’d go at night - a cafe, a bar, a pub, a disco - and you’d nearly vomit at how your clothes smelled the next day.
The US used to be a lot like this too. Food service workers smoking cigarettes while they carve meat and then throwing the butts in the drain. Smoking sections in restaurants being most of the restaurant while the non-smoking section was a corner of the restaurant where they just sat you between all the smokers like the smoke was gonna hit an invisible barrier. Everybody was smoking all the time. My grandma once served my grandfather his breakfast in an ash tray because she was so sick of him putting out his ciagrettes on the plates.
It wasn’t until around the 2000s that things really shifted in the US, and now the thought of a smoking vs non-smoking section of anything other than a little room at the airport where the smokers all squash into to smoke is unheard of.
I remember a buffet place—it may have been a Golden Corral, not sure—that had a sealed off smoking section with a glass wall, one of those “air doors” above the sliding door that function like an air lock, and a separate AC system.
It was always weird to look into that space and watch the lonely people smoking and eating.
Every other restaurant was a smoking free-for-all.
can confirm (germany), it’s gotten better but in my childhood there was literally just a cig vending machine outside my block, like 30-40m away from a playground
The US used to have those vending machines in bars and some restaurants too, up until the 90s. The smoking section of restaurants was mostly an invisible line that cut the room in half, so you could have a smoking table literally right next to a non-smoking one.
Go back before smoking sections, and it was the Wild West. Smoking was the default environment. Non-smokers were expected to remove themselves if they were bothered by it.
At the grocery store there would be a line of gumball machines for kids, right alongside a cigarette machine.
My high school had a smoking courtyard, right across from the cafeteria. We called it The Pit. Teachers smoked in the Teachers Lounge. It was famous for having a cloud of smoke pour out whenever the door opened.
I remember being in a doctor’s office as a kid, and having the doctor light up during the exam!
In many families, both parents would smoke in the car with the windows rolled up, and kids in the backseat, with no car seats or seat belts.
Nobody asked permission to smoke after a meal, they’d just light up, even if others were still eating. I remember my Dad getting offended when I asked him not to light his pipe at the dinner table while I was still eating.
People smoked at every table in any restaurant.
In offices, people smoked at their desks, until offices started having smoking rooms, and eventually chased them outside. Today I see workplaces where smoking isn’t allowed anywhere on the premises.
I worked in record stores starting in 1977, and there was always a standup ashtray at the intersections of aisles, filled with sand. At the end of the night, while the manager was counting the till, one of the clean up jobs was taking a sieve to each ashtray, and sifting out the cigarette butts. Every store I worked in had ashtrays, until I became a store manager, and banned smoking in my stores.
Almost EVERYBODY smoked in the 60s and 70s, except me.
Fun fact, this is how I got about half of my cigarettes in high school. The local dive had the machine by the back entrance which was around the corner from the host stand. You could easily use it without being seen. And on the rare occasion someone did see you and said something all you had to do is tell them to mind their own business and leave because the entire process took about 30s.
While I am regularly annoyed at smokers in restaurants, at bus stops/train stations and in pedestrian zones, you haven’t felt “everything” until you go to e.g. Turkey (as much as I love the country)
You’d only get second-hand smoking if you spent every day in your life in the tourist hellhole of central Amsterdam. Try going to Germany instead, everything and everyone reeks of cigarettes and they even have vending machines for them in plain sight in amusement parks.
What about second hand fish?
I swear, smokers in Europe have atrocious social graces with no concept of personal space. Even at the busiest and most cramped cafes, they will light up at the table with you or standing next to a doorway, and then act like you’re the problem if you’re annoyed or upset about second hand smoke. Beer gardens and outdoor seating almost universally include a carcinogenic haze, it just ruins the meal/drink imo to be tasting the air between bites
At least in America the social stigma is strong enough where they scurry off to their
opium densmoking area and get their nicotine hit with their brethren. Go in peace friend, you do you over there to y’all’s lungsSweet summer child, you should have seen Europe at the turn of the century.
I’ve seen doctors pulling out a cigarette and start smoking in the middle of a ward. Any place you’d go at night - a cafe, a bar, a pub, a disco - and you’d nearly vomit at how your clothes smelled the next day.
Everything and everyone smelled like tobacco.
Nowadays? It’s paradise I tell you.
The US used to be a lot like this too. Food service workers smoking cigarettes while they carve meat and then throwing the butts in the drain. Smoking sections in restaurants being most of the restaurant while the non-smoking section was a corner of the restaurant where they just sat you between all the smokers like the smoke was gonna hit an invisible barrier. Everybody was smoking all the time. My grandma once served my grandfather his breakfast in an ash tray because she was so sick of him putting out his ciagrettes on the plates.
It wasn’t until around the 2000s that things really shifted in the US, and now the thought of a smoking vs non-smoking section of anything other than a little room at the airport where the smokers all squash into to smoke is unheard of.
I remember a buffet place—it may have been a Golden Corral, not sure—that had a sealed off smoking section with a glass wall, one of those “air doors” above the sliding door that function like an air lock, and a separate AC system.
It was always weird to look into that space and watch the lonely people smoking and eating.
Every other restaurant was a smoking free-for-all.
Ha, this is an excellent story
can confirm (germany), it’s gotten better but in my childhood there was literally just a cig vending machine outside my block, like 30-40m away from a playground
The US used to have those vending machines in bars and some restaurants too, up until the 90s. The smoking section of restaurants was mostly an invisible line that cut the room in half, so you could have a smoking table literally right next to a non-smoking one.
Go back before smoking sections, and it was the Wild West. Smoking was the default environment. Non-smokers were expected to remove themselves if they were bothered by it.
At the grocery store there would be a line of gumball machines for kids, right alongside a cigarette machine.
My high school had a smoking courtyard, right across from the cafeteria. We called it The Pit. Teachers smoked in the Teachers Lounge. It was famous for having a cloud of smoke pour out whenever the door opened.
I remember being in a doctor’s office as a kid, and having the doctor light up during the exam!
In many families, both parents would smoke in the car with the windows rolled up, and kids in the backseat, with no car seats or seat belts.
Nobody asked permission to smoke after a meal, they’d just light up, even if others were still eating. I remember my Dad getting offended when I asked him not to light his pipe at the dinner table while I was still eating.
People smoked at every table in any restaurant.
In offices, people smoked at their desks, until offices started having smoking rooms, and eventually chased them outside. Today I see workplaces where smoking isn’t allowed anywhere on the premises.
I worked in record stores starting in 1977, and there was always a standup ashtray at the intersections of aisles, filled with sand. At the end of the night, while the manager was counting the till, one of the clean up jobs was taking a sieve to each ashtray, and sifting out the cigarette butts. Every store I worked in had ashtrays, until I became a store manager, and banned smoking in my stores.
Almost EVERYBODY smoked in the 60s and 70s, except me.
Fun fact, this is how I got about half of my cigarettes in high school. The local dive had the machine by the back entrance which was around the corner from the host stand. You could easily use it without being seen. And on the rare occasion someone did see you and said something all you had to do is tell them to mind their own business and leave because the entire process took about 30s.
While I am regularly annoyed at smokers in restaurants, at bus stops/train stations and in pedestrian zones, you haven’t felt “everything” until you go to e.g. Turkey (as much as I love the country)