In febuary 2009 der Spiegel reported taht smoking bans were very weakly enforced by authorities and in many places the ban wanst observed at all. The poor enforcement shows that the government aren’t as willing to ban smoking themselves. So the ban may not have the desired affect at all.
Some german bar owners often take the attitude of ‘this is my store/bar / restaurant and its my property so therefore i will allow people to smoke on my property’ which can be seen as reasonable.
Prevalence of smoking is high in Germany1 and young people, especially, show one of the highest smoking prevalences in Europe.2 This is mainly due to the lack of efficient tobacco control measures in Germany,3 e.g. the widespread availability of cigarettes through vending machines. Germany has probably the highest distribution of cigarette vending machines in the world per capita with 726? 000 vending placed all over the country in 2004. This is crucial because the use of these machines does not have any social control and, thus, cigarettes are easily available to children and adolescents also. Therefore a smoking ban may not affective at all.
Most of all is a smoking ban democratic. People have the right to smoke in bars and restaurants given that the owner allows it. Its easy to say that a smoking ban harms non-smokers but really the human rights of a smoker should be protected. Maybe a compromise should be made or an initiative that allows both parties to be rightfully protected.
is anyone still up and bothered to translate ???
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