[Intl-tobacco] Success of Italian Ban on Smoking in Public Places

[robert weissman]

ANSA

Smoking ban smashes stereotypes
Acceptance of law casts doubt about Italians' anarchic image (ANSA) -

Rome, August 26 - The chances of success for Italy's ban on smoking in
public places looked uncertain nine months ago, when the country was
preparing to follow the tobacco-free lead of Ireland and California.
Frightened of losing custom, bar and restaurant associations were busy
mounting challenges in the administrative courts, while smokers' groups
started to campaign for a referendum to overturn the ban. These
eventually came to nothing, but what many people believed would cripple
the reform was the notoriously anarchic nature of the Italian public. It
was feared smokers here would show their dissent by simply ignoring the
new rules and things would effectively stay as they were in the
country's cafes, restaurants, bars and clubs. This possibility seemed
all the more likely as bar and restaurant owners threatened not to
enforce the ban, arguing they are business people, not "sheriffs of the
state" .

Then January 10 arrived, the ban came into effect and, to universal
amazement, it was seamlessly accepted by all .

Apart from one customer in a Bologna pizzeria, who pulled a gun when
asked to put out his cigarette, there was hardly any resistance. The
collapse in trade feared by bar and restaurant owners also failed to
materialize. Smokers continue to go their local bar for their morning
cappuccino and enjoy a plate of pasta at their favourite trattoria later
in the day. The only difference is that when they feel like a cigarette,
they have to go outside .

The police have confirmed that the level of compliance is remarkably
high. In the ban's first six months, police carried out over 6,000
checks to make sure the smoking ban is being observed, but issued only
300 fines. What's more, most of those fines were not slapped on smokers
having a sly ciggie where they should not, but on establishments that
had forgotten to put up No Smoking signs .

"It seems that the Italian people have welcomed with intelligence the
signal we wanted to launch for the protection of public health with this
law," said former Health Minister Girolamo Sirchia, the ban's architect.
The fact that the ban has been accepted so well has led some to argue a
few national stereotypes need revising .

"Have we suddenly become respectful and disciplined? No. It's simply
that we are not stupid," wrote Beppe Severgnini in Milan-based daily,
Corriere della Sera .

"When a law is sensible we accept it. And when it is enforced - with
penalties and social pressure - we even respect it." The ban's success
is partly down to the widespread awareness of the dangers of passive
smoking .

Several polls have shown that support for the ban is high among both
non-smokers and smokers. "When the law was introduced there was a great
deal of scepticism about whether it would be possible to enforce," wrote
novelist and university professor Stefano Zecchi in weekly magazine Gente .

"Instead the Italian people have shown themselves to be mature and
respectful of a law, whose value they are well aware of." Severgnini,
meanwhile, argues the government's determination to show its teeth to
make the ban work has been a key factor. Smokers who break the ban face
fines of up to 275 euros, while bar and restaurant owners who do not
enforce it risk penalties of as much as 2,200 euros. Severgnini's thesis
is that Italians are no more or less civilized than their northern
European neighbours. But they have earned the name of being anarchic
simply because the state here lets people get away with more. When the
state forces people to go by the book, he says, they do .

"The environment is what creates certain social behaviours," he wrote.
"Swiss, German and Austrian motorists prove this. When they are at home,
they respect the rules. As soon as they arrive on our motorways, many of
them drive like robbers escaping from a job, ignoring the 130km/h speed
limit .

"Have they gone crazy? No, but they see that everyone goes that fast and
no one stops them." Curiously, one of the few places the ban has not
taken hold is at the Premier Department's offices, Rome's Palazzo Chigi .

According to newspaper reports, Foreign Minister Gianfranco Fini and
Reform Minister Roberto Calderoli started breaking the ban at meetings
at Palazzo Chigi, after Francesco Storace, a smoker, replaced Sirchia as
Health Minister in April. The Italian Tobacconist Federation estimates
that cigarette sales have fallen 6.2% since the ban came into force .