For the first several years living here I dealt with more smoke than you could possibly believe…people would light up and blow smoke right at my food.

In the last couple of years Bavaria has been kinda strange. First, there was a ban on smoking in restaurants and bars…but it was A: not enforced, and B: ignored pretty easily with a loophole allowing for “smokers clubs” (which included a lot of restaurants).

Then, the conservative government (CSU) decided to go ahead and relax the smoking laws allowing for more people to smoke wherever the hell they want. That brings us to the big petition that is going on right now getting 10% of Bavarian citizens to force the state govt to re-ban smoking (and hopefully outlaw smoking clubs). There’s one more day left…and it looks to be close…

If you know of any Bavarian that hasn’t gone down to their local Rathaus and signed the petition, please…drag them there in the next 24 hrs (Munich’s Rathaus is open til 8pm today and tomorrow).

I’ve had a LOT of tourists visit and say how wonderful it is that they can breathe in the HBhaus or any of the other beer halls, where in previous years they couldn’t..

BTW: I have nothing against you smoking, just as you probably have nothing against me eating mexican food and farting up a storm, but not in confined spaces, please.

For those playing the home game, here’s a few links:

TT forum, in English

Live updates of the vote in Munich (as the thing is over, this link is now dead)

…and this is the one from the organizers, only in German (sorry)