Franconian Beer Message Board

Smoking Ban

Posted by Nick B. on 2010-02-14 22:57:42

So the Bavarian citizenry will get to vote on a law for a state wide complete smoking ban, which would include no exceptions for the Oktoberfest or other festival tents, separate smoking rooms, etc., --and which would prohibit the "Raucherclub" loophole-- on 4 July. The legislature declined to do the brave thing and enact such a law itself, and are pushing it off to the voters at a cost of 13 million €. To their credit though, they didn't push it out into August, when the whole state goes on holiday. To get to this point, such a proposed law is put to a petition, whereby voters have to go to the trouble of going down to their local voting office, and in some cases waiting in line, mostly during working hours. (As opposed to my last place of residence, Oregon, where ballot petitions signatures are collected out on the streets, thereby guaranteeing that there are multiple ballot initiatives every election. Here the hurdle is set higher.) 10% of the voting public have to sign the petition in order to get it onto the ballot. In this case, more than 14% did so in the end. Opinion polls show a large majority in favour of the new law. We'll see.