Forecast Highs

Here’s an interesting twist to the non-enforcement of the no-smoking in public places law.

On Thursday night I was at the Foster’s Bar on the corner of Shlomo Hamelech and Frishman in Tel-Aviv, a small, intimate bar with an upmarket vibe. It was my housemate’s birthday party [about ten of us] and there were about 40 other people at the bar. Several of them were smoking [some of my friends who were there, being mostly Anglos, went outside to smoke - because they are civilized people]. I’d say about 7 or 8 people were smoking in the bar, and Foster’s was slowly starting to fill up with smoke.

I asked the barman if he wouldn’t mind telling the smokers to please go outside [I've learned the hard way not to approach smokers at bars myself]. This is the exchange that followed:

Me: Why are you letting people smoke in here? Its illegal. Can you please ask them to smoke outside.

Barman: I’m afraid I can’t do that.

Me: Yes you, can. The law is on your side.

Barman: No I can’t, and I have a really good reason too. But I don’t want to go into it, its complicated. Just trust me, I can’t. Can I get you another drink?

Me: What? You’re not serious.

Barman: I am. If I ask these people to go smoke outside the municipality will close this bar down at 12:30, and they’ll keep it closed.

Me: Because?

Barman: Because if more than five people smoke outside then they’re making a noise and the neighbors complain, and there is a law in the city that says you can’t make a big noise in a residential area after midnight. Trust me I suffer from the smokers here myself, but there is nothing I can do.

Me: Why don’t you tell them to go smoke outside and ask them to be quiet?

Barman: I can’t do that. People talk.

Me: So, you’re breaking the law in here, so that you won’t be breaking the law outside? How does that make any sense?

Barman: What can I do? If I don’t let people smoke in here they’ll close us down.

Six months after the government enacted the no-smoking in public places law, this barman was essentially saying that he could not abide by that law [as if anyone were actually enforcing it] because he would be breaking another, older city law: no noise in residential places after midnight.

Welcome to Absurdistan.