Berlin hipsters stink... for four more days

[imomus]

While you're leafing through Stil in Berlin's photographs of this city's coolest, most fuckable arty party animals, just remember one thing: they stink. If you could smell these carefully-assembled, dizzyingly diverse outfits, they'd all have one thing in common -- the ashen pong of fresh or stale cigarette smoke.

Berlin is the last frontier of in-yer-face social smoking (only matched, it seems, by Tokyo). It's a town in which schall means rauch, buzz correlates to smoke, and youthful hedonism is triangulated between three constant props: the beer bottle, the cell phone, and the cigarette packet. It's been this way forever, and it'll stay this way till... well, till Tuesday, actually.

Because Tuesday, January 1st 2008 is a historic day -- the day Berlin becomes Germany's pioneering no smoking town. From Tuesday, smoking is banned in all official, health, cultural, sports, educational and children's facilities, in all restaurants and pubs, in airports, and in any space (except private homes) enclosed by walls and a ceiling. There's a standard fine of €1000 for the owner or occupier of any room in which smoking occurs, though there's a six month transition period in which fines won't be applied. Bars and restaurants will still be allowed to have a smoking room, but won't be allowed to offer service there.

The smoking ban has happened despite two things, the attempts of conservative chancellor Angela Merkel to block the ban, and the fact that the Nazis were anti-smoking, and that therefore anyone who tries to ban smoking is seen as some kind of "health Nazi".

The weird thing about the Nazis' anti-smoking policies is how utterly ineffective they were. Despite portraying smoking as a cosmopolitan-foreign-capitalist-savage plot to enslave the Aryans ("the wrath of the Red Man against the White Man for having been given hard liquor", Hitler once called tobacco), and despite taking out advertising and enacting legislation designed to wean Germans off the noxious weed, the Nazi period saw German per capita tobacco use rise rather than fall -- from 570 cigarettes a year in 1932 to 900 in 1939 (for comparison, French consumption in the same period grew from 570 to just 630 cigarettes).

"Our Fuhrer Adolf Hitler drinks no alcohol and does not smoke," ran one 1937 poster campaign. "His performance at work is incredible." The target audience seems to have remained thoroughly unconvinced. German tobacco companies responded in two ways. First, they presented themselves as staunch supporters of the Nazi regime, launching "Stormtrooper cigarettes". They also launched a slew of pseudo-scientific "medical journals" intended to sew doubt about the anti-smoking movement and portray its proponents as "unscientific" and "fanatics". In an arm-wrestle between the Nazis and Big Tobacco, it seems, Big Tobacco won.

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Recent smoking bans have had a dramatically good effect on public health, improving the life-chances of smokers and non-smokers alike (but non-smokers slightly more). The Scottish smoking ban brought an immediate and significant cut in heart attack rates (Scotland's biggest killer). A smoking ban in Pueblo, Colorado saw hospital admissions for heart attacks fall by 27%. Secondhand cigarette smoke triggers a lot of heart attacks, apparently.

It remains to be seen whether cool Berliners will continue to stink past Tuesday, and exactly what clever measures pubs and clubs and restaurants will take to circumvent the new legislation. Will they go as far as the inn in Lower Saxony which cut a smoking hole in its wall? Or, in a city notorious throughout Germany for the fact that people -- gasp! -- cross the road against the red man, will people just ignore the ban -- at least until those hefty fines kick in?

Personally, I'm delighted to see Big Tobacco given a great big kick in the bollocks here in Berlin. And I hope that, starting next week, our gorgeous hipsters start smelling as sweet as they look.

Comments

Bang

[(Anonymous)]

yeah


A.P.

[kumakouji.livejournal.com]

Smoking is gross for a lot of reasons. I don't get it at all.

When I see a smoker I see someone who didn't have the balls to be different when they were a teenager. And they nearly all regret it by the time they're adults, but by then they're hooked. They're the tobacco company's bitch.

I will occasionally come across someone who adamantly claims it wasn't about peer pressure and that they genuinely started smoking because they enjoy the effects of the nicotine, but I don't buy that. If you only started for the nicotine why not buy nicotine gum or patches? That way you get the hit of nicotine without fucking up your lungs, or smelling, or making your teeth and nails yellow...

[charleshatcher.livejournal.com]

Seeing as we're being so sweeping: smokers, in my experience, tend to be far more interesting... eventful people. I doubt this is cause and effect, but it's definitely related. I'd take a smelly, yellow teethed smoker over an arrogant non-smoker any day.

[dzima.livejournal.com]

Let's say what Alin has to say about this.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Make up your own thing to say!

[thebestweapon.livejournal.com]

"i'm not addicted to smoking i'm addicted to this [/fingers-to-mouth gesture]"

we in chicago-town, usa, face the ban in three days, as well, and there's no grace period like what you describe in berlin.

i'm a filthy smoker and i started late (contrary to kuma's stereotype) and can't quit soon enough. i hope this will give me the kick in the pants i need, but i have a feeling finding some way to remove all the worry and stress from my life will be more effective than a state-levied ban. i'm not really complaining, though; i get it, and i totally sympathize with non-smokers. there's nothing more vile than eating within 10m of someone who's puffing away, except maybe literally having your non-smoker clothes reek of it after a night out. i type this as i extinguish my last smoke for the night/day. something's got to give!

[kumakouji.livejournal.com]

"i started late"

Late starters are rare in my experience. What possessed you to start as an adult?

[(Anonymous)]

Only one (the one you use) out of 11 of the pics on the first page of Stil features someone with a fag - have the hipsters already got the message?

[(Anonymous)]

Oh for sure they read this stuff.

Not nice

[(Anonymous)]

Any plans for the New Year, Nick?

Re: Not nice

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Plans for New Year include dinner with Shizu and David, friends visiting from Tokyo, and a party with some Japanese neighbours.

not nice

[(Anonymous)]

Oh I love that bar!

not nice

[(Anonymous)]

Oh I love that bar!

[mylifeismundane.livejournal.com]

reintroducing hitler as a theme, eh?

;-)

[(Anonymous)]

Haven't been to Tokyo yet, but my times in Moscow definitely match (and maybe surpass) experiences with "in-yer-face social smoking" that I've lived through in Berlin. You have been warned.

Fwah

[(Anonymous)]

the tiny opening of a camels eye,
a needle's eye found in a desert,
a perforation in the packaging of fresh tomatoes in a Tokyo supermarket,
the space between a cash exchange for bratwurst in a German open air market,

this is the space for momus; as a jettison of milky,stank, VD pish is fired through the holes as described as above into the (gammy) eye of a posh moneyed blogistocrat...and he loves it; the poor,poor old,old fucker of an excuse that he is.

Smoke 'em if you got' em

[cheapsurrealist.livejournal.com]

It's odd that with Hitler's talent for staging and with him being "the first rock star" ( who said that? You or Bowie. I get you two confused ) that he didn't grasp the simple undeniable fact that smoking makes you look cool. Perhaps his fatal flaw.

Now the American G.I. knew what real cool was. Nothing like a liberator with a Lucky Strike dangling from the corner of his mouth.

ORIGINAL

[electricwitch.livejournal.com]

GIP

[electricwitch.livejournal.com]

And you were doing so well :(

[microworlds.livejournal.com]

I know, I come back from councilestate's drunken celebration to this? It's like the internet has exploded while I wasn't here!

Well, by "internet" I mean "Momus' Livejournal" because you see, if he can claim that hundreds of teenagers started commenting on his blog out of nowhere even if it was just one (ie me) then I can exaggerate too! HEIL HITLER AND HIS SMOKING BAN AMIRITE???

[cargoweasel.livejournal.com]

I never thought people would stop smoking in New York either, it was utterly part of the culture here as well, but the ban came in and now it's much more pleasant to go out of an evening. People grumbled but now concede that it was a good thing, even for bar and restaurant owners.

It's not a "civil liberties" issue when secondhand smoke is harming workers and bargoers all around them.

[olamina.livejournal.com]

I think "Second hand smoke" is bollocks. We probably get more harm from fumes emitted in the air. Fumes that the government has been kicked down money to ignore. So many people--especially the people who talk all this game about being progressive and thinking out of the box--just believe and reproduce the spoonfed hype.

It's a shame.

[olamina.livejournal.com]

I don't like the smell of cigarettes and I don't like going to gigs and coming home smoky. I used to be a fan of smoking bans, but since moving to Europe I have seen the big picture and am hopping mad about these bans. Where are the gun bans and the bans on dropping bombs on anonymous people in other countries? Why target smoking? Why now? It's utter subterfuge, that's why.

[qscrisp.livejournal.com]

I agree.

[olamina.livejournal.com]

I am especially annoyed about the smoking ban in places like America where the government hardly makes any expenditures for public health. If people want to smoke themselves into an early grave that is their prerogative, no?

This is just opening ourselves up for more regulations of our bodies by some paternalistic state. People are supposedly paying their taxes to get specifically defined services, not for the government to stand there like mother hen and wag hypocritical fingers at us or worse yet we adopt the mode of mother (or shall i say father) hen and do the policing ourselves. It reminds me of the interpassive mode that Zizek refers to in this piece (http://www.lacan.com/zizviol.htm), where he says...

"the standard "interpassive" mode of our participation in socio-ideological life in which we are active all the time in order to make it sure that nothing will happen, that nothing will really change."

I refuse to be a tool in the service of something like this any longer. If it means going home with smoky hair, so be it.

[butterflyrobert.livejournal.com]

The so-called hipsters of today wear too much black and seem robotically cynical and apathetically reactionary.

[ataxi.livejournal.com]

Yeah. Hipsters were better before. You know, back then.

[unwoman.livejournal.com]

It took a little while for the ban to settle in in California, some eight years ago. People here and there still smoked in bars until about three years into the ban. I usually took it upon myself to tell them to put it out or get out. Which for some reason ended up with dudes threatening to beat up my boyfriend, not me.

Now I'm so sad to go clubbing in other cities where people smoke like crazy, both the immediate stink and the lingering asthma piss me off. I view second-hand smoke as, basically, someone else's shit.

[akabe.livejournal.com]

thank goodness olamina for a healthy comment.

Nick, as much as i respect your personal dislike for tobacco smoke (i hope the smoke didn't penetrate too deep into the walls, books and other stuff. no sarcasm) i'm constantly amazed that you seem to fail to see that the smoking tabu is the ultimate symbol of the state of control you always criticize. (it's definitely more acceptable to express sympathy for bin laden than for tobacco these days)

(zizek's decaffinated thing - which is how dzima will be drinking his macchiato once starbucks have had their run and we move on to the next thing)

i like japan a lot not only because i can smoke indoors , (very good in winter), oddly it's a bit harder to smoke outdoors these days, but also for example i can also choose to wear or not wear a helmet as i wish, i can ride on the road and negotiate my own danger or on the footpath and think of others. can carry a child on the bike in various supposedly unsafe ways, thereby having to create some safety, make responsible decisions, interact and be constantly aware on my fellow beings, have minor accidents (or the odd smoker's cough :-) and learn from them etc etc.

and hail to germany for going so far into the european finals.

will faux smoked ceilings be the next trendy berlin bar thing?
fashion nicotine stains ??

[akabe.livejournal.com]

the smoking thing has hit japan though. and guess where it hit first. roppopngi hills.
(before that starbucks but that was insular and much less popular than the japanized smoker-friendly excelsior). case laid. democracy is comming.

[cap-scaleman.livejournal.com]

I wonder how much land area the tobacco fields are "occupying". My opinion is that we could use these land areas for something more creative like food or maybe growing new forests.

[kumakouji.livejournal.com]

" i'm constantly amazed that you seem to fail to see that the smoking tabu is the ultimate symbol of the state of control you always criticize."

A lot of people like to see the smoking ban as an example of "state control", "the Nanny state". But there are lots of other examples of the state interfering with "personal freedoms" with you wouldnt argue with.

If I ran a private business, should I be allowed to discriminate against non-whites? Let's say I run a business and I only want white people to work with me and I only want to serve whites. This is illegal, you're not allowed to do this. This is an example of government stamping down on personal freedoms to improve the livelyhood of a society on the whole.

Smoking has been proven to increase mortality rates. Not only is it a habit that interferes with the smoker's health but the people around them. You could argue "well, if they dont like it they can patronise another establishment!", which is true, but this will never happen because smoking as become a established practice in our society and it would leave non-smokers with very few options. Government would have to make laws to prompt the public to change their ways.

Same deal with environmental laws. In my part of London it's illegal not to recycle, you get fined for not doing it and I applaud this.

Without law and order man has no freedom. Theres no such thing as "freedom", its about compromise and sacrifice for the "greater good" when you live as part of a society. Its a balancing act. What the greater good is however is up for debate...

[ataxi.livejournal.com]

"A lot of people like to see the smoking ban as an example of "state control", "the Nanny state". But there are lots of other examples of the state interfering with "personal freedoms" with you wouldnt argue with."

I don't see how this can carry your argument, since there are also lots of other examples of the state interfering with personal freedoms which people can and do argue with: what's to say smoking bans aren't one of those? Where do you stand on recreational illegal drug use?

I'm not a smoker, but I'm ambivalent about smoking bans. They've been around for a couple of years where I live: some bars and pubs have improved in consequence, and others just aren't as much fun as they used to be (though I'm sure the staff appreciate a smoke-free environment in 99% of cases).

In former times the smoking public was a much more reliable cash cow for corporate interests, and now the self-optimisation industry is rising to take its place. Smoking bans are arriving now because the slow slash-and-burn cycle of the habits that drive consumerism is moving on to new vices ... or at least, it's credulous to assume that the rational interest of the public is the direct cause of such legislation when the "science was in" on the health effects of smoking (and passive smoking) decades ago.

ooh and the nazis discovered that fags kill you ten years before everyone else

[dr--ben.livejournal.com]

at the risk of pimping my own blog in a deeply uncool fashion, nazi smoking research is a bit of a, er, hobby.

http://www.badscience.net/?p=442

two german researchers published a case-control study in a german medical journal in 1943 which demonstrated a relationship between smoking and lung cancer about ten years before any researchers anywhere else spotted it.

this was basically the single biggest lifestyle risk factor ever identified for any disease ever (95% of lung cancer is caused by smoking, nothing else has come close, not diet, obesity, nothing) but the world ignored them because this work was bound up in the completely fucked nazi pseudoscience/moralpuritanism project, and performed by people involved in other grim nazi medical activities and the "final solution". although you'll notice nobody dismissed von Braun's groundbreaking missile research on moral grounds.

also, after the 1930s stuff above, during the (long) allied occupation, it was hip and anti-nazi to smoke, which reinforced germany as a bit of a smoking bastion. although somehow it also just fits the place.

Smoking is fun

[(Anonymous)]

Think smoking technology - there will one day be the Marlboro equivalent of the catalytic converter.

Sorry that you think I smell. But 'smelly' is relative.

By the way I've known upwards of 10 people that have either dies or been seriously injured in car crashes, some of them old and some of them young.

I've known zero young folks to die of smoking, and only one of the old folks.

Vietato fumare? Nein danke.

As If

[(Anonymous)]

"The Scottish smoking ban brought an immediate and significant cut in heart attack rates (Scotland's biggest killer)."

It's baffling that you actually believe this kind of nonsense you have obviously been away from Scotland too long. I've seen a lot of pubs close down due to the ban but never met anyone who has stopped smoking due to the ban. You really should stop using the Internet as your only research tool. I'm a non smoker who likes the smell of fresh smoke, so there. When may we ask will the start banning half baked opinions on t'internet they really are a mental health hazard.

Re: As If

[imomus.livejournal.com]

I should stop using broadsheet newspaper articles (http://www.guardian.co.uk/smoking/Story/0,,2166559,00.html) for my research, should I?

Have a read of that article, and the Wikipedia one (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smoking_ban) I link to in the same para, and you'll find that you've misunderstood how this works. The reductions in heart attack deaths which followed the smoking bans in Scotland and Colorado are mostly attributable to non-smokers having fewer heart attacks triggered by passive smoking. It's not primarily to do with smokers stopping smoking. This ban is about us.

Smoking is fun - postscript

[(Anonymous)]

>>Secondhand cigarette smoke triggers a lot of heart attacks, apparently<<

I ain't bein' rude, right, but how do you know all the non coronaries were people who had been saved from second hand smoke? That's a ridiculous Edinburgh Evening News old wifey type inference to draw (sorry about the pun...)

Pseudo science from ASH - second hand smoke kills

Pseudo science from FOREST - digestive biscuits are heavier carcinogens tha second han smoke.

Light(en) up!

Re: Smoking is fun - postscript

[imomus.livejournal.com]

COLORADO: In the first 18 months after the town of Pueblo, Colorado enacted a smoking ban in 2003, hospital admissions for heart attacks dropped 27%. Admissions in neighboring towns without smoking bans showed no change. The American Heart Association said, "The decline in the number of heart attack hospitalizations within the first year and a half after the non-smoking ban that was observed in this study is most likely due to a decrease in the effect of second hand smoke as a triggering factor for heart attacks." (Source: Wikipedia)

SCOTLAND: Researchers found a 17% drop in the number of people admitted for heart attacks in the year since the ban came into force, compared with an average 3% reduction a year over the previous decade. The reduction was most marked among non-smokers, with a 20% fall, compared with a 14% drop among smokers. (Source: Guardian)

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Oh, I see smoking is also banned in French cafes from Wednesday (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7163178.stm).