I heard it on the Belgian radio news, and now this from the on-line press so it must be true:

“Gambling Commission wants to allow players to smoke again in order to save casinos.”

For Belgian casinos – all nine of them – are in trouble, mainly for the usual reason of fierce online competition. One can always smoke at home (if the significant other there agrees), in front of the computer. If something is not done, argues Gambling Commission Head Peter Naessens, then punters will stay there to place their bets or, if they really desire that on-site gambling experience, will simply cross the border, presumably where they can both gamble and smoke.

So the proposal is to put in an exemption to the general smoking ban for enclosed public places of July, 2011, and thereby allow smoking again in Belgian casinos – that is, allow people to ruin their lungs (for the cigarette-makers’ profit) at the same time as they ruin their finances (for the casinos’ profit). This is really depraved; and both of these are potentially addictive behaviors!

The one hitch here may be that that 2011 ban came about as the result of a decision from the country’s Constitutional Court, which interpreted the relevant law to require that, if you are going to have a smoking ban at all, you enforce it for all public places, in the interest of equity and fair competition. Meanwhile, this particular article signs off with the reminder that “. . . the [gambling] sector is good for 5,000 jobs in our land.”

It has been a particular challenge going through the Danish press today: they seem especially gripped by (to coin a new term) “April-Fool-itis,” that is, celebrating this April 1 by planting remarkable “news” stories that turn out just to be a joke. Even if one is inclined to look favorably on the practice (e.g. as an amusing change-of-pace from the pedestrian nature of most news during the other 364 days of the year), Danish newspaper practice unfortunately waters it down substantially through the practice of frequently running the same articles from the Danish news-agency Ritzau in several of the papers at the same time. This naturally reduces substantially the amount of truly-original (as opposed to “echoed from Ritzau”) material. (Dutch papers also have this problem, i.e. of too many papers too often publishing the same article, by the way.)

Still, there are a handful of original joke-articles out there. But then the next problem arises, i.e. that the humor is too tied-in to the Danish cultural and/or political context to raise any laughs outside of the country. Anyway, let’s go looking for these jokes-articles and you can decide this for yourself. This exercise will also be valuable as a means to “innoculate” you against these tongue-in-cheek news-tales in case you later run across them within a context elsewhere that presents them to you as real. (more…)

From Germany’s third newsmagazine, the relatively Johnny-(or is that Johan?)-come-lately Focus comes word now comes that the EU is close to instituting a Europe-wide ban on smoking at the workplace. (For those who don’t already know, the previous and still-existing entrants on that German newsmagazine scene were, in order, Der Spiegel and Stern. And the initial inspiration for Der Spiegel – founded right after the War in 1947 – was of course Henry Luce’s Time magazine.)

Such things are apparently under the remit of the European Parliament, which next Wednesday is expected to pass such a law. The only allowed exceptions will be independent workers (I guess those who work by themselves anyway) and construction workers on-the-job. Marc Sapir, named as the Director of the Europäischer Gewerkschaftbund (basically the European organization of labor unions), is cited signalling his approval for the measure. In particular, he says, “The current anti-smoking laws are not enough to protect serving [e.g. waiters] and kitchen personnel.”

A notable topic covered lately in the Czech press is one of that country’s chief vices: smoking. That coverage does not really concern the associated damage to one’s health and the fact that anyone who can quit really should – the Czechs know about all that already. Rather, what has occurred is two recent developments with seemingly opposite meanings for the country’s smoking classes, but which in the end still basically leave them gasping for air. (more…)

This might not have been addressed directly in the Reader’s Digest-sponsored Euro-survey I reported yesterday – but when you’re asked to name a great partying nation, the Irish would be at least near the top of your list, am I right? But that would be before you remember that it was precisely Ireland where Europe’s first public-smoking ban was introduced at the end of last March, just barely three months ago. A successful public-smoking ban, too, at least successful so far, and that naturally starts people’s thoughts heading in the direction of whether such a measure can’t also succeed elsewhere. (Of course, Norway banned public smoking in turn just this very month.)

On the other hand, a recent report in the main Czech business newspaper Hospodárské noviny points to this anti-vice crusade spreading in another direction: still within Ireland, at least to begin with, but now with a view to throttling the consumption of alcoholic drinks (The Irish Go to War with Drink, Want ID-Checks, Higher Excise Taxes). (more…)