Blow the Other Way
Once upon a time everyone smoked in Spain. Even babies ended up smoking. Everywhere you went there would be people with cigarettes in their hands, mostly men. I remember the worst-smelling tobacco was the brand Ducados; unfiltered and black, with an acrid smell that was like sandpaper sliding into your throat. That was the brand my father would smoke here on vacation once he had finished the box of Camels he had brought with him.
It didn't matter where you went, you would always find people smoking. Even on the bus. The back of the bus was for smokers, the front for non-smokers, but it didn't matter. There was no ventilation system to keep the smoke in one area, just windows you could open and close back then. On a rainy day, after a one-hour trip, you would tumble out of the bus feeling more cured than a ham hung five days in a smoke house.
In the 1980's more spots were set aside for non-smokers, generally the worst tables at an airport restaurant, or the dark corner of a bar where no one wanted to sit. Hospitals finally had smoking prohibited in them, but visitors and patients still smoked in the restrooms. I remember when my sister-in-law was pregnant twenty years ago, her hospital room reeked of smoke whenever one of the other expectant mothers opened the bathroom door after placating their vice. The rules were there to be broken, and few people paid attention to the "No fumar" signs.
When we moved here in 1991, my father had finally stopped smoking after fifty years. My lungs had already been affected by winter evenings of closed windows and a smoke-filled living room. I appreciated the new atmosphere at home, but was plunged back into the smoke fog wherever I went, especially at night. My boyfriend also smoked, as did most people my age back then. My luck was that, after we were married, my husband didn't smoke much at home, and stopped smoking inside the house and the car completely when I got pregnant.
But I wasn't free of smoke until the first comprehensive anti-tobacco law was passed in 2006. That law prohibited smoking in all small bars; larger bars had to have an enclosed space set aside for smokers. Restaurants were smoke-free. Finally I could attend a wedding reception and not begin to suffer halfway through the appetizers when all the smokers started to light up. I could also enter an office without sniffing the smoke from a cigarette lying in an ashtray. Or go out at night without trying to stay below the cloud of smoke in a locale. The law has been reinforced five years ago, and now it's illegal to smoke in any bar, large or small, and at the door to public buildings. And any parent cannot light up while waiting for their child at the swings, either.
Of course, like the hospital patients did twenty years ago, some of those new rules are there to be broken. People still smoke at the entrance to the hospital, only they do it farther away from the door. Some bars will let their local clients smoke after a certain hour, and after closing the door and the curtains. The law still allows people to smoke at the open air tables of a bar or restaurant. But, in the winter, the tables are shielded from inclement weather in such a way as to become an enclosed space.
And, now, twenty-two beaches in Galicia have joined a growing number of Spanish and European beaches that are free from smoke. Those beaches have a sign at the entrance proclaiming them to be smoke-free. I have mixed thoughts about that. While less people are smoking these days, unless I'm sitting right next to a chain-smoker, in the open, circulating air, I'm not going to notice the smoke to an annoying degree. The only thing I will notice are the butts buried in the sand, along with the ice cream wrappers, sandwich wrappers, popsicle sticks, tissues, and the occasional condom. So, as a way to clean up the beaches, it's also insufficient. And, since it's not a prohibition, only a recommendation, most smokers are not going to pay any attention.
At least the old stereotype of a Spaniard with a cigarette always in hand is slowly disappearing into the smoke of the past.
It didn't matter where you went, you would always find people smoking. Even on the bus. The back of the bus was for smokers, the front for non-smokers, but it didn't matter. There was no ventilation system to keep the smoke in one area, just windows you could open and close back then. On a rainy day, after a one-hour trip, you would tumble out of the bus feeling more cured than a ham hung five days in a smoke house.
In the 1980's more spots were set aside for non-smokers, generally the worst tables at an airport restaurant, or the dark corner of a bar where no one wanted to sit. Hospitals finally had smoking prohibited in them, but visitors and patients still smoked in the restrooms. I remember when my sister-in-law was pregnant twenty years ago, her hospital room reeked of smoke whenever one of the other expectant mothers opened the bathroom door after placating their vice. The rules were there to be broken, and few people paid attention to the "No fumar" signs.
When we moved here in 1991, my father had finally stopped smoking after fifty years. My lungs had already been affected by winter evenings of closed windows and a smoke-filled living room. I appreciated the new atmosphere at home, but was plunged back into the smoke fog wherever I went, especially at night. My boyfriend also smoked, as did most people my age back then. My luck was that, after we were married, my husband didn't smoke much at home, and stopped smoking inside the house and the car completely when I got pregnant.
But I wasn't free of smoke until the first comprehensive anti-tobacco law was passed in 2006. That law prohibited smoking in all small bars; larger bars had to have an enclosed space set aside for smokers. Restaurants were smoke-free. Finally I could attend a wedding reception and not begin to suffer halfway through the appetizers when all the smokers started to light up. I could also enter an office without sniffing the smoke from a cigarette lying in an ashtray. Or go out at night without trying to stay below the cloud of smoke in a locale. The law has been reinforced five years ago, and now it's illegal to smoke in any bar, large or small, and at the door to public buildings. And any parent cannot light up while waiting for their child at the swings, either.
Of course, like the hospital patients did twenty years ago, some of those new rules are there to be broken. People still smoke at the entrance to the hospital, only they do it farther away from the door. Some bars will let their local clients smoke after a certain hour, and after closing the door and the curtains. The law still allows people to smoke at the open air tables of a bar or restaurant. But, in the winter, the tables are shielded from inclement weather in such a way as to become an enclosed space.
And, now, twenty-two beaches in Galicia have joined a growing number of Spanish and European beaches that are free from smoke. Those beaches have a sign at the entrance proclaiming them to be smoke-free. I have mixed thoughts about that. While less people are smoking these days, unless I'm sitting right next to a chain-smoker, in the open, circulating air, I'm not going to notice the smoke to an annoying degree. The only thing I will notice are the butts buried in the sand, along with the ice cream wrappers, sandwich wrappers, popsicle sticks, tissues, and the occasional condom. So, as a way to clean up the beaches, it's also insufficient. And, since it's not a prohibition, only a recommendation, most smokers are not going to pay any attention.
At least the old stereotype of a Spaniard with a cigarette always in hand is slowly disappearing into the smoke of the past.
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