Listen, many Americans don’t like breathing smoke while they’re eating (including me), but we’re not total nimrods. If a restaurant has a smoking section and a non-smoking section, the non-S’ers have no right to tell the S’ers not to smoke in the S’ing section. This is the rule in the U.S. just as in Europe, because it’s only common sense. So if some idiot tried that over here, he/she probably would be cheerfully invited to fuck off as well.
I would have blown smoke.
An elderly friend once mentioned that she and her husband (great folks, lived lives that Jack London could have written about) always asked to be seated in the smoking section, “Better class of people.” I don’t agree with her, but I do see her point.
I know a guy who doesn’t smoke but when he was looking for a house share to move into dismissed all the “Non-smoker” only ads as he said he didn’t want to live with anybody who felt the need to stipulate rules in Ads.
Heh. I’m pretty draconian in my own house – I once chewed out my housemates for smoking in the basement after I’d asked them not to, and I always asked potential housemates about their smoking habits. There are few smells fouler than the stench of cold cigarette smoke, and I don’t like being around foul smells.
But the fools in the restaurant need to get a grip. Even an American manager wouldn’t be likely to humor them: you only humor a customer when it doesn’t piss off another customer. In this case, if the manager had placated them, it would have been at your expense.
…ah, but then there’s downtown Shallow, er, ah, I mean, Palo Alto, where in fact outdoor smoking has been banned! (sorry, no cite) Lots of restaurants/cafes there, but even as a non-smoker I think this is a bit over the top.
yojimbo, I too would like to apologize on behalf of all the rude/stupid/clueless Americans you probably run into every day (when I visited Dublin I did my best to just blend in - I quickly saw that smoking is just plain a given, so I “got over it”). That rude couple are probably the same sort who, when they go over to France (we can only hope!!), will probably do the SPEAKING… LOUDLY… SLOWLY… SO THE LOCALS CAN UNDERSTAND THEM routine - Yeck. Makes me embarrassed to tell people where I’m from (like people couldn’t already tell, I guess), when I go traveling.
ps. I’ll take Abrakebabra any day over McD’s or the other burger joints we have in the States…
Ooh, I like this thread. I smoke, and I live in a part of the world where a higher percentage of people smoke.
I know it’s a digusting and deadly habit, so don’t get on my case about that.
But I’m as considerate as possible regarding my smoking. I go outside for my smoke breaks at work. (Well, I have no choice, but still.) I wash my hands and chew gum before going back to my desk.
I don’t smoke in non-smokers’ houses unless they say I can. I don’t even ask - I just assume they don’t want me to smoke, so I’ll go on the balcony or whatever.
I don’t smoke in non-smokers’ cars. I often get a ride with a co-worker of mine, and I don’t even smoke on the way to the car. I don’t want him to sit there trapped in the stench.
I don’t smoke when we go out for birthday lunches at work.
But don’t fucking tell me I can’t smoke in my own house. I’ll keep it to a minimum, but it’s my fucking house. If we’ve just woken up after a torrid night of passion, I’ll go into the other room to smoke, so that you won’t have to deal with my smoking in the bedroom (which I only do when alone).
So look, I know smoking sucks, but at least I try and be considerate about it.
We’re with you, Yojimbo. Join the huddled, half-frozen exiles smoking in the alley.
I’ve been addicted to tobacco since the last years of the Eisenhower Administration and half-heartedly switched to a pipe in 1963 when Mrs. G. read the Surgeon Generals report and took away my Camel shorts and the 25 cents/day she allowed me to buy them.
First the airlines prohibited pipes and cigars, while allowing cigarettes. Then they confined me to a silly little glass cage in the airport. Then high-tone restaurants decided to allow cigarettes in their smoking section while discouraging pipes. Now the legislature and city counsel are agitating to prohibit smoking in my own sole-proprietorship office. This is just getting silly.
You can’t imagine what a pleasure it is to go to Europe or Canada where I an expected to smoke. Of course, in Europe I have to share my table with a dog, in Germany a long-haired Dachshund. I tell you, the whole world is going to hell in a hand basket.
:rolleyes:
I liked that part about cigarette smoke in Irish pubs. Given my mood at the moment, I may have chosen your situation as a good time to release a little tension onto these two shits.
So I live near this silly-assed town in north-central Colorado. In this town, someone built a theme bar - a “genuine Irish pub”. It kinda looks like something outa Walt Disney World. It’s so darn spiffy!!
Having been to Ireland and to one or two pubs there, I goes into the Irish Pub during happy hour.
Two of the most priminent features of Irish pubs were completely missing. That is, there was no thick cloud of blue-gray cigarette smoke, and there were no fookin’ TVs to watch football on.
I mentioned this to the owner, who is from Ireland. He appeared uncomfortable, mumbled something, and left.
Dang, I never thought I’d see the day where I’d be on the side of a <gasp> smoker! But I guess that day is today. What a couple of asshats!
Here, I’ll share a story about a nice smoker: I was collapsed on a bench in front of Wally World, 9 months pregnant and so freakin’ tired! It was outside, but sort of enclosed, and technically a “smoking” area. This guy plops down next to me, and lights up. Normally I would have just moved away, but as I said, I was sooo pooped. So I said to him, “I’m so sorry, but I’m pregnant and the smoke bothers me. Would you mind moving?” And he said “sure,” and moved. Thanks, smoker dude!
This thread makes me think about Stephen King’s story “The Ten O’ Clock People” In it smokers begin to wage a guerilla war against an alien infiltration of our society. Something about the nicotine allowing them to see through the alien disguises.
Downtown Santa Cruz, where you can’t smoke in lines.
Downtown Los Gatos where there is an anti-smoking in public statute which is clearly never followed, and cops pass me when I’m smoking and never hassle me.
Some other town in Nor-Cal(forget where, exactly), where wearing perfume isn’t allowed.
Etc, Etc.
Sometimes Northern Cal sucks so bad…then I think about our weather. LoL
laughs Now that’s one way to describe a place… I’ll be keeping this phrasing in mind.
*attempts to sy Abrakebabra *
Abra… abrakebararabbkakaba… Ack. Ack. Ack-ack! (Well, I hope it has decent food at least, even if the name is a bit rough on the tounge.)
(Ooooh, 200th post. And it’s in the Pit. Go me!)
<< …and those who go with her are never the same. >>
ok I am usually a lurker but I have to reply to this thread…
I am a smoker and I feel that I have more right to smoke than non-smokers have to bitch.
Why?
I pay for my right to smoke, if they wish to pay even 1/2 of what I pay in taxes buying cig. then MAYBE I would listen to them…but seeing how they don’t then I say Shut up or light up but get out of my face! The taxes my state adds to the cost of my smokes goes to schools, roads and to help lower medical bills (well I truly doubt that last one but thats what they tell us) if it wasn’t for us smokers we would all be paying a lot higher state and local taxes. anyhow thats my word on it…don’t get me started on seat belt laws lol Willow Fire
which comes from a most interesting story about the Big Brotheresque Californian smoking laws.
As an American living in the UK for 2 years now, it amazes me to see tourons (tourist + moron) coming into this country and complaining about such things as smoking in the smoking areas… I mean how dare they!!
Also, am an ex-smoker with a smoking husband. He is very conscious of smoking around me, but going to the pub and such I don’t expect him to not smoke. Even I want a tab with my pint occasionally.
As for doner kebabs. Pronounced donner… well this just brings up a WHOLE different thought… think Donner Party…
I have yet to actually have an entire doner kebab. Last week in the local chippy the hubby told the lady I’d never tried this. She smiled and said ‘here have a taste…’ handing me a huge shaving of the stuff. I looked at it… turned it around a few times… grinned and took a nibble. HEY I DIDN’T KEEL OVER!!! It actually tastes yummy
Sorry they gave you a hard time yojimbo. It’s jerks like that who give the rest of us civilised peeps a bad name!
The site’s about as homely as the restaurants are. The front page has a ‘win tickets to see Santa’ competition, in Kildare no less. In May? I’ve no idea what this is about, or why it is there.
They’re not the worst kebabs in the world, but that’s not saying much, is it?
If you drive a car and you sideswipe a pedestrian, does the pedestrian have no right to bitch, since you’re the one paying the road taxes?
We nonsmokers get to bitch because you’re ruining our air and our health. The taxes you pay don’t even enter into it, except that they allow you to adopt a pathetic “look at me, I’m a poor beleaguered martyr!” complex so popular in today’s nonminorities. Get over yourself.
Whew! It feels good not to be defending smokers anymore!
I live in California with a bunch of anti-smoking Americans yojimbo. A few months ago I was at the outdoor seating of a restaurant. I had finished my meal and was having a smoke and reading a mystery, when a woman came up to the table next to me with a sack lunch and had the nerve to ask me to put my cigarette out. She was not patronizing the restaurant! I left because I wasn’t sure I wouldn’t do something I’d regret later. My apologies for rude Americans visiting your country. But, hopefully they’re not all that bad. And at least you’re not trapped in California!
Hmmm…indulging a habit that negatively affects everyone around you within breathing distance beats out Freedom of Speech. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.
P.S. Paying sin taxes does not give you Bonus Brownie Rights™.
