PARIS - A ban on smoking in public spaces came into effect Thursday, a change that may alter the image of a country defined in part by its smoky cafes and cigarette-puffing intellectuals.
France’s 15 million smokers will be banned from lighting up in workplaces, schools, airports, hospitals and other “closed and covered” public places. More than 175,000 agents are to enforce the ban, handing out fines of $88 for smokers and $174 for employers who look the other way.
In a year, the ban will extend to cafes and restaurants — sure to be the moment of truth for a certain image of France, where writers like Albert Camus and Jean-Paul Sartre are remembered with cigarettes dangling from their mouths.
Bussac said he has done his workplace smoking on his office balcony, allowing him to carry on with business on the telephone. Starting Thursday, he will have to smoke in the street.
*and one more downer in Amsterdam:*
Posted Dec 6, 08 1:48 PM CST
Apparently being the world’s sex and drugs capital isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Amsterdam is hoping to shut down about half of its brothels and half its marijuana shops, theDaily Telegraph reports. Already this year, 109 of the city’s 482 sex “windows” have been shuttered. “Money laundering, extortion and human trafficking are things you do not see on the surface,” explained the deputy mayor, “but they are hurting people.”
Holland has been drifting away from its famously permissive culture. The country recently banned psychedelic mushroom sales, and two border towns want to close their drug shops altogether. By closing the brothels, the deputy mayor says Amsterdam will attract different kinds of tourists. “We can still have sex and drugs,” he said, “but in a way that shows the city is in control.”
SOURCE: Daily Telegraph (UK)
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