Jump to full article: San Francisco Chronicle, 2006-06-19
Author: Scott Ostler
Intro: Shopping for souvenirs, I've been trying to find a cuckoo clock where the bird comes out smoking a cigarette and coughing the number of hours.
Germany is a healthy and environmentally conscious country. . . .
This is just about the last major European country that hasn't banned smoking in public places. Not only can you smoke basically anywhere, you can't swing a dead cat without hitting a cigarette vending machine. They hang on walls and fences.
One reason the German law hasn't come down on smoking, according to a newspaper story here, is that the tobacco industry spends a ton of money on advertising and political lobbying. . . .
The stadium seating areas are non-smoking, but you still see people lighting up. Unfortunately, most of them sit next to me. One game it was an Italian couple smoking about five cigs at once.
"Non fumare!" a fellow journalist said to them.
They shrugged and kept puffing, because they were more reasonable than the rest of us.
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