Swiss bar owners fear profits will go up in smoke

Long gone are the days when the French cafés conceded to the first wave of anti-smoking legislation by placing a solitary and unused table as close as possible to the toilets with a non-fumeur sign on it - it may as well have said social outcasts only. And it was with a reluctant shrug of those revolutionary shoulders that they added the warning to cigarette packets, choosing the most innocuous dissuasion - something like 'try not to smoke if you can possibly help it.'

But that was Grenoble, 1991, when The Intrepid Rosbif was strutting around the streets and bars, with a Marlboro forever hanging off his lower lip. These days, with these French bars and restaurants getting used to the ban on smoking, the Swiss are lagging behind France and the UK with an outright ban in all public places, although that hasn't stopped some café owners taking the law into their own hands.

Directly underneath my place of employment in Geneva is a bar that until recently was packed with local types, the air thick with smoke and effervescent chit-chat. The Portuguese owner, a non-smoker, decided to take a stand and up went a hand-drawn 'no smoking' sign in the bar window just after Christmas. So, did this valiant act of defiance encourage the regular punters to bin the fags (cigarettes in UK English, not to be confused with homosexuals in US English) and enjoy each other's company without having to cough and smell for the rest of the day?

Alas, not exactly. In fact, apart from the lonely figure of a stout barmaid, wiping the same tables for the 84th time that day, there wasn't much happening. Unsurprisingly, a few days later, the revolution was over, the sign in the bin, the bar full of people, and the air again a billowing mass of smoke.

So, as les Genevois vote on the issue this weekend, there will those feeling that smokers should be actively discouraged (as per the picture above from the UN in Geneva) but not turfed out into the street for good. According to swissinfo.ch, the WHO (World Health Organisation) would like to see the Swiss charge more for cigarettes, as currently a pack of twenty will only set you back approximately $5 or GBP 2.50.