Buena suerte con eso.

I haven't been to Spain for years but from what I remember of my last visit it seemed that almost everybody smoked. Old, young, men, women. Leather faced labourer types from villages up in the mountains, long legged brunettes in expensive sunglasses holding designer handbags.

Possibly a Spanish baby.

So I'm not sure how popular this is going to be.

The Spanish parliamentary commission passed a bill on Wednesday night to make all bars and restaurants no-smoking zones, bringing Spain in line with the European Union's strictest antismoking nations.
The law is expected to pass the Senate and become law on Jan 2.

And I very much hope that the major effect is that Spain becomes slightly less law abiding on January 3rd.

The current law put in place in 2006 prohibits smoking in the workplace, and workers smoking just outside their office buildings are a common sight.
But that law aimed at cracking down on smoking permitted owners of most bars and cafés to decide on their own whether to allow smoking – and almost all ended up doing so, leading critics to label the earlier law a total failure.

If by total failure we mean that there are still plenty of bars and cafés in Spain because the hospitality industry was able to cater to both smokers and non-smokers then yes, a complete and abject failure. I mean, are they closing up at anything like 30 a week? I don't bloody think so. On the other hand if you think that a law that caters for everyone - smokers, non-smokers and business owners alike - and hasn't been accompanied by a surge in cafés and bars simply giving up and closing down then failure might not be quite the right word.

Those bar and café owners will now lose the privilege, and larger restaurants that still have smoking sections will have to get rid of them. Officials predict thousands of lives now lost to second-hand smoke in Spain will be saved.

My prediction is that the same kind of bullshit stats will be wheeled out in the next couple of years that we've seen before. It'll be the Scottish Heart Miracle all over again, except about a thousand miles due south. I'd bet more people have had 'crushed by donkey thrown from tower' written on their death certificates than have had secondary smoking.

Christ, stop feeding us all this bullshit. If you don't like the smell, and I quite understand that since I'm not a fan myself, just take a couple of steps backwards. Providing you're not standing with your back to a cliff it works just fine. And equally, don't go into the bars that allow smoking. Why is this so bloody difficult?

I can only hope that the Spanish play awkward and tell their government to go fuck itself (I used up most of my knowledge of the language with the title) but failing that I'd suggest they follow the example of some of my favourite bloggers. Smoky-drinky places are the way to go.