Smoking and the Law

Evil never looked so good...

Now this post is only really geared to smokers, so if you don't smoke (or plan on smoking in the near future) feel free to skip this.  

Where you can smoke: Since 2008, smoking laws down here have gotten increasingly harsher. In the good ol' days (1998 - 2008, for me anyways), you could smoke wherever the hell you wanted and most restaurants didn't even bother with smoking sections. Nowadays, restaurants and bars (and yes, even clubs) are officially non-smoking zones. But, this being Mexico, there's always a loophole.

Restaurants noticed that they were losing money due to people, who would regularly order drinks and coffee to accompany their after-meal cigarette, were just getting the hell out of Dodge after dinner. So, to get around this, most places just said "to hell with it" and just lopped a section off of the restaurant/bar and created smoking sections that, theoretically complied with the law, since you really weren't smoking "in" the restaurant. Some places, however, just said "screw it" and opened up windows where the smoking section used to be.

Sadly for us smokers, the government got wise to the scheme and just started closing places down, especially around where I live. As such, we smokers have been reduced to having to go outside and light up (what are we, bums?). Which, now that it's the rainy season, is just freakin' great...

I'm guessing we'll all be using these by next year...

       

Clubs: Clubs mostly don't give a flying f### about the smoking law. Since most of the club owners just pay off the cops when they do inspections (money really does make the world go round), you can get away with smoking. So if you are a non-smoker (and apparently the vast majority of the world's population is these days) and you feel like going clubbing, get ready to smell like an ashtray once you get home.

One of the funniest things I've seen clubs do down here to "comply" with the law is to simply not use ashtrays. I guess the argument is supposed to go something like "There's clearly no smoking going on here! Do you see any ashtrays on the tables?". Instead, you just get, in some cases and places, cut up aluminum cans that serve as makeshift ashtrays. Although, I do question the logic behind putting sharp, metal objects on tables in closed environments where you can literally drink yourself stupid. It's like a recipe for the most heinous bar fight ever.

Like this, but filled to the brim with cigarette butts

 The moral of today's story: Smokers are a tenacious lot. Where there's a will there's always a way.

Oh, before I forget, VERY IMPORTANT: If you are one of those incredibly annoying people who make coughing noises around smokers to get them to move, down here, you're really just asking for trouble. My advice, unless you want to catch a severe beating or the odd cigarette burn, just don't do it.