I celebrated when cigarettes were banned in restaurants

My parents always used to sit in the smoking sections.

And they always smoked a few cigarettes during the meal.

I was so happy when they finally banned the cigarettes in restaurants. My parents were pissed.

Reminder to anyone who still smokes: you smell like shit 100% to anyone you interact with.

And any place you still smoke in, whether your car or home, also smells like shit.

And to delivery drivers who smoke, the packages you deliver smell like shit, too!

Between the massive corporate wealth at stake and the millions of people literally addicted to the product, it's hard now to imagine governments being able to ban them (and I lived through it).

For people too young to remember, a lot of people were against smoking bans. The argument was pretty simple: "Why not let the market decide? If you want to go to a bar with no smokers, go to one that doesn't allow smoking." This was persuasive to a lot of people.

But I recall that non-smoking bars were extremely rare and I would always end up smelling like smoke every time I went to the bar. The problem was basically that going to a non-smoking bar would exclude any friends that smoked, so bars that became non-smoking were limiting themselves to only those patrons who didn't smoke themselves and had no one in their group who did.

In hindsight, it betrays a fundamental problem with the "let the market decide" argument: there are situations where a small number of consumers with uncommon preferences can end up altering the whole market such that the majority of consumers are forced into un-ideal purchases. In the case of smoking at bars, it was actually better to say "Hey you few people who smoke, you're kinda fucking up everything and we do actually need big government to step in and stop you from doing that."

And airplanes. People used to smoke in airplanes.

Also it was a freaking huge industry to kill all the whales in the sea.

Once upon a time it was common to mine ice.

The world can be changed.

Ah yes, the smoking section, and the second-hand-smoking section in restaurants

as a young person who hates cigarettes and recently went to las vegas for the first time, it was wild walking around the casinos thinking "this is what everywhere used to smell like, its incredibly disgusting!" I'm glad we managed to stop smoking indoors, probably one of the greatest advances of society.

Yeah, I remember the tail end of this. Dedicated smoking rooms, or smoking carriages on trains. Or cafés and restaurants that would promote themselves as places where you could freely smoke.

Thankfully that's all gone now.

If you as much as had a coffee out you used to have to immediately wash everything you were wearing down to your socks. Turns out, jeans don't automatically stink if you cross your front door with them. Who knew.

It's been a while, but that tobacco smell on clothes was so weird. It smelled sweaty even if it wasn't, like you had been jogging through a house fire. So gross.

Just want to add that the biggest objection that I have heard from coworkers and friends about making recreational Marijuanna legal is the smell. Walk around a downtown in any state it is legal for recreation in and the smell is everywhere.

Non-users don’t want to smell burning weed or tabacco as they go about their day.

"This is a non-smoking flight." Yeah, fucking who doesn't know that? It's like saying this is non-highjacking flight.

I remember cigarette smoke on airplanes.

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I lived in hungary for a pretty long time and there everything still smells like cigarettes... moved to sweden the air is literally fresher and the grass is literally greener

I remember growing up in Ohio when we banned smoking, there were commercials CONSTANTLY about it.

Smoke FREE Ohio vs smoke LESS Ohio.

And even in school I could tell that smoke LESS Ohio was going to force places that didn't have smoking, to allow smoking in certain areas.

And the guy in the commercial for it acted incredulous that they would ban smoking in bars! The horror! A place where people are densely packed clearly should be filled with cancerous death fog, slowly killing people who want to be at the bar but not partake in death sticks.

I was super happy when the ban happened. I hated going to nearby states without the smoking ban.

It took years for golden corral to stop smelling like shit.

I still find it funny that we used to just have smoking and non-smoking sections, as if the smoke would stay entirely on the smoking side of the restaurant when they're not even physically seperated.

That shit sucked. I am a smoker myself and even I hate being in a closed room to smoke or be around others who are smoking. Casinos fucking suck for this. In California, the smoking ban doesn't include the native American casinos. You can smoke indoors (and drink at 18+) at Jackson Rancheria.

Negative health effects aside, I do kinda miss the smell of certain places - the smoking tables of a restaurant, an 80's arcade, the back bar of a country pub... not in a way that I liked the smell at all, but that's what it always was, and taking an element away from it leaves a noticeable gap.

I suppose people of a later generation will never remember the difference, much like I never really knew anything but colour TV.

That said, I absolutely 100% do not miss going out on the piss, getting home somehow, and waking up in my clothes that absolutely reeked of smoke. It was horrific. A quick wash never seemed to clear it fully either - it was either a wash that lasted so long that it looked like you bought your clothes from the children's aisle, or a whole day line drying to get rid of that stale smoke smell.

I'm glad the world is moving on.

A couple years ago I was in I-Hop with the fam and this young woman came in reeking like a walking ashtray. It brought back a semi-nostalgic memory of people I used to know who smoked so much it was in their clothes, their hair, their furniture, etc. - it was part of them. I never minded the smoke itself, it was that rancid cigarette butt stench that I always hated.

I remember this happening, and the smell went from just dirty and grim to a little bit of body odour. Many people complained, because they didn't want to smell people's BO, whereas 90% of others were just happy to not have clothes that stunk, or to be able to not have a sore throat after being at a club.

With that said, vaping is so much more commonplace today than smoking was. I've been to a few gigs in the last month or two, and people just vape wherever they want. Pretty much every venue, shopping center, and indoor area says you shouldn't vape, but it's just not enforced at all.

Now it just smells like vape

What a nightmare

My mom used to pick the smoking section. I'll never be able to empathize with that.

Still true in some parts of the EU

Las Vegas and Reno casinos are still like that. I don't go often, but the few times that I have I gave up any of my mild interest to gamble when I realized how much smoke there was indoors.

I wish we could have cigar bars now, along with venues to smoke bong hits inside.

I honestly don't know really anyone who thinks it's a bad thing, and back when it happened I was in bars a lot and knew some proper alkies who loved their ciggies.

It's crazy, people used to smoke on the dance floor even. Like the beat turns from fast to slow and you stamp out your cigarette so you can dance the slow one. Or even worse, you don't stamp it out, just put it between your lips and keep puffing while gently dancing away to the slow song with a partner. (Careful, don't burn her hair.)

sry, but I like my drugs, also this depends on where you are, if you're in europe it still smells like cigarettes everywhere, but with a touch of strawberry ice vapes

My grandpa quit smoking before I was born but all through my childhood I remember my grandparents house having a very distinct smell and I grew fond and nostalgic about it. I later learned what the smell was and I still kinda like it.

I used to smoke and we never smoked inside because we knew it made the house stink and the walls yellow. The closest we got to smoking inside was smoking in the garage when it was so cold in the winter that it really wasn't a good idea to be outside in the first place.

First time I flew on an airplane I sat in the smoking section. I was 15 yrs old then.

I remember getting stuck in the smoking section of cracker barrel because the good section was full as a kid.

Still does in Japan and Montreal

In Greece they still smoke there, even if it's banned.

I grew up in ghetto whitetrash America, wheee bit more than cigarettes

Some cities still do.

Cigarettes smell gross objectively but I get a wave of.....nostalgia I think? when I smell it

My parents never smoked, but on the rare occasion of going to a sit-down restaurant the whole place smelled of cigs despite being in the "non smoking" section. You know because you're still in the same room with them.

And when my dad would visit his fire department friends they'd all hang around and at least one of them had one lit up.

We do live in better times in some ways

I hate how so many cities smell like asphalt and burnt rubber. It is a disgusting smell and it makes our cities feel so dirty and nasty.

I miss smoking but don't miss the smell.

Now it smells like skittles and creme brulee.

cigarettes are fucking based though. Nicotine rush 😹☝🏼

The freedom to do good is also the freedom to do bad so let's get rid of freedom.