Smoking Changes in Austria

This week, Austria passed up a law that will eliminate smoking in any public place by the beginning of 2018.

Naturally, it's gotten a hostile review by pub, bar, and restaurant owners.  They know the trend and statistical averages from Germany when they tried the same thing.  Smokers will come into a pub or bar to have one drink, then leave.....no more multiple drink customers if they are smokers.

I read over the wording of the law as described in two Austrian papers.....the key term is "public".  Private venues are excluded.....at least by the present wording. This kinda opens the door for pubs and bars to limit themselves to a membership 'game' and be strictly private in nature.  You could sell memberships at the door for a Euro a month and note that a member has to accept smokers as part of the membership.  If it sounds like a bogus way of getting around the law.....I imagine dozens, if not hundreds, of owners are thinking over the idea already.

I can remember back in the late 1970s.....being in a German beer-hall, and the whole place was one big smoke cloud.  No one worried about it, and the owners never said a word over complaints made of the situation.  Today?  All it takes is one or two customers to get a owner worried.

No one said much in the Austrian articles over the new vapor technology and I kinda wonder if they will label that just as 'bad'.

What happens in 2018?  My humble bet is that Austria wakes up about six months into the ban and discovers that thirty-percent of pub business evaporated.....to include tax revenue and roughly two-hundred Austrians lost their jobs because of less business.  In the restaurant arena.....I'm betting on a ten-percent loss.   All of this will lead to political conflict as people try to figure why customers won't stay for the second or third drink.  Some idiot will suggest that the second or third drink should be non-taxed....to entice people to stay and drink more, which will get a few laughs around the Austrian countryside.

In the end.....the same number of smokers will exist.....but drinking more at home or on their balcony.  It'll be curious to see what they do next.....like eliminate smoking from balconies across Austria or forbid patio smoking.