The Bars’ Big Day Off

What on earth is everyone going to do? A day with no bars or restaurants. We’ll all have to do some work for once. And re-arrange the location for all our meetings. Where? Nary a café nor bar with its doors open, we’ll have to use things like offices. We’ll have to make our own coffee and, so, rather than complaining about the cost of a café’s cortado, we’ll moan about the price of a packet of molido from the supermarket. Life will simply be unbearable.

The bars and restaurants of the Balearics are planning on taking a day off. All of them. Ha-ha-ha. As if. One day in the not-too-distant future, in an act of protest against the smoking ban, the coffee machines will lie idle, the tapas will be taped up and the cañas will be canned.

One supposes that the bar owners will hope that this decaffeinated day will prompt an uprising of the dislocated populace, wandering aimlessly like the lost tribes of Israel in vain search of a welcoming terrace. Government buildings will be stormed. Riots will ensue. “We need our coffee!” will shout the dispossessed. Spain’s “coffee revolution” will occur.

Will it? Hardly. First problem is going to be getting all bars and restaurants to agree as to the day. What about a Sunday? You must be joking. Busiest day of the week. Erm, so how about a Tuesday? Are you kidding? It’s market day in … (add as applicable). Tell you what. A Saturday. 9 April. You what? It’s the first day of the boat fair in Puerto Alcúdia.

The bar and restaurant owners aren’t totally stupid, unlike the airport workers. They intend to have their day of protest before the tourism season kicks in. Of course they will. They’re not going to close once the punters start streaming in from the easyJets.

But getting agreement or universal support for a day’s closure sounds as unlikely as the local population announcing a collective abstinence from coffee, regardless of whether it’s inspired by bar closure or not. There’s one very good reason why it will be hard to agree to. Self-interest. Takings may, allegedly, be down by 20, 30, 40%, but mass action by a suddenly co-operative union of bar and restaurant owners would reverse the tradition of looking after number one. If this day does go ahead and is a success, I’ll eat my coffee machine.

This is not the first time that a protest of this sort has been considered, albeit that previously it was for an altogether different reason. In Alcúdia, rather than a pointless street demo, the idea was floated of a mass closure – during the tourist season – as a way of voicing discontent with the effects of all-inclusives.

Damaging though this might have been, in various ways, it would have been intended to show the damaging, long-term impact of all-inclusives – a resort with no bars or restaurants open, because they no longer have the business. Over-dramatic perhaps, but, as demonstrations go, it would have been powerful. But it would never have happened and never will happen. It’s all down to self-interest.

If the bar and restaurant owners’ day of inaction does get agreed to, what would happen were some bars to ignore it? Are there going to be pickets flying around, trying to prevent customers getting in?

Assuming that the bars and restaurants are prepared to forego a day’s business, what about effects to other businesses? The hard-pressed ensaïmada industry, sales already generally down, will suffer a day’s loss of fresh lard being scoffed. Newspaper publishers will also suffer, because there will be no bars to buy their papers for the clientele to read, though they might also benefit as said clientele would have to actually fork out for a paper for once.

There would be ripples in the wider economy from a bar’s day of inaction, but these ripples would be nothing compared with the floods that might occur. No bar open. Where the heck do you go for a pee?

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Space Monsters Ate My Atmosphere

One of my nieces is an animator. She makes models that are transformed through computer-generated imagery. She has a penchant for strange, Gerald Scarfe-like grotesques that inhabit an alternative world of the weird. I have an idea for her. Creatures with mushroom heads, thin, skeletal torsos and one tree-trunk-thick leg. These would lumber across landscapes, terrorising man and environment alike with their noxious fumes which consume air and the atmosphere. These monsters would be the Space Eaters.

One impact of the smoking ban has been that the sale of heating units for terraces has shot up. Space heaters have been common enough in bars and restaurants, but suppliers have been recording record sales as owners look to keep their clientele warm while they smoke.

Is there anything quite as ridiculous as heating outdoor air? This, let’s call it the “batty proposition”, is one argument against space heaters. But heating outdoor space has long been with us. Bonfires, braziers, no one ever objected unless they were being set fire to. The difference with the space heater is that it is environmentally harmful. Supposedly.

Space heaters have been around for years. The Germans, for example, have used them to warm Munich beer drinkers and Glühwein imbibers at Christmas markets since the 50s. In the UK, they were a rarity, only coming into vogue in the late 90s before being elevated into the position of number-one environmental killer thanks to the UK’s own smoking ban.

The side effect of all the legislation aimed at driving smokers outside was that previously unknown carbon emissions started wafting into the atmosphere and onto the radars of environmental groups and tree-hugging politicians. Friends of the Earth leapt to the defence of the environment, earholed a Liberal Democrat MEP and, bingo, the European Parliament agreed to ban space heaters, in that it agreed with a report that was to form the basis of guiding decisions by member countries.

This was in 2008 though and bans, were they to be introduced, have yet to be implemented. But don’t discount them being so. If something can be banned, then politicians will find a way of getting it banned.

Inevitably, sides have been taken in the space-heater debate, which has been warming up nicely since Brussels and Strasbourg started to stoke the fire.

An average heater uses the same amount of energy as a gas hob would use in six months and produces 50 kilograms of carbon dioxide annually, said the UK’s Energy Saving Trust. No, it produces less, said Calor Gas: 35 kgs. Compare this with the average 3000kgs from a car, said someone else. The overall impact of heaters on emissions was minimal, said an Eric Johnson from the UN’s Convention on Climate Change: less than plasma TVs, for example. Electric outdoor heaters have greater carbon burdens than the usual gas ones, said a report for the UK Government’s sustainable energy policy, but can be more efficient as they provide focussed heat.

So, round and round the debate goes. Locally, I am unaware of enviro watchdogs having had their centimo’s worth, but it can only be a matter of time if they haven’t. GOB will surely come to the aid of the environmental party, but I wonder how many GOB-ists take a coffee on a space-heated terrace. Perhaps they don’t indulge in such a past-time because to do so would be environmentally incorrect as coffee plantations are destructive of Brazilian or Kenyan eco-systems and the greenhouse effect of a bar’s coffee machine is equivalent to the warming caused by all the methane from the dung of the entire wildebeest population of sub-Saharan Africa. Or something like this.

There is apparently a law covering heaters, one which says that they must be movable and can only be used during winter months. Which sounds like the bleeding obvious. But it also says that they should be used for only four months. Really? This is the first I’ve heard of this, but it comes from one of the many reports that have appeared in the local media regarding the sudden growth in space-heater sales.

For the time being though, and until any definitive moves to put a stop to space heaters, smokers and others can be kept warm on open-air terraces. But the Space Eater monsters’ days may be numbered, because, as Friends of the Earth have said, there should be a ban on “these carbon-belching monstrosities”.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Gets In Your Eyes: Not from January (the smoking ban)

In the lead up to national no-smoking week in Spain, a survey – reported on in yesterday’s “Diario” – finds that 70% of Spaniards support a ban on smoking in bars, restaurants and the like and that a third would be more likely to go to bars once a ban is in place.

There has been much confusion and misinformation regarding the precise implementation of the smoking ban and when it will come into effect. To reiterate … it will cover enclosed public places, such as bars, which does, however, still raise some question as to what is or isn’t enclosed. But be that as it may. Spanish law is rarely clear. There are moves already, though, for some exemptions. Hotels are likely to be able to maintain a percentage of rooms as smoking; 30% is the figure being bandied about. I guess if people want to smoke in their rooms, then this should be up to them, but the hotel exemption does smack a bit of the hoteliers exerting pressure if they are fearful of loss of revenue. And if this is the reason, then it does rather undermine the logic of the ban elsewhere. The government, and others, have been at pains to say that revenue will not be harmed; quite the contrary in fact.

The timing of the ban is becoming clearer. A week ago the health minister made a pretty unequivocal statement that it would come into effect on 1 January next year. This has long seemed to be the logical starting-point, assuming they don’t change their minds. The regional health ministers are due to be consulted in June, the law would be brought before parliament in the autumn and, bingo, you have your ban. Talk of it coming in much earlier has never sounded realistic.

But when it comes in, and it will, how smoothly might it be implemented? Recently I have been into different bars and wondered how on earth they will do it. Take somewhere like Cultural in Puerto Pollensa. If you were an airplane, you would have been grounded and not allowed anywhere near its airspace; the interior is its own ash cloud. It’s hardly unique. There are also some bar owners who, believing themselves to be, er, “well in” with certain authorities, which they may or may not be, are suggesting that they will ignore any ban. Let’s see, shall we. Though how comprehensive the checking and how well-staffed the smoking plod might be is anyone’s guess. At a time of public-sector cuts, this is unlikely to be a growth area in employment. Which will probably mean a spate of Jose Public dobbing in a bar to plod. Or, more likely, a rival bar doing the dobbing in.

The irony of the ban in bars will be that they will still be able to have cigarette machines. Or maybe it isn’t so ironic. Terrace life will be unaffected, unless terraces are somehow deemed to be enclosed. Anticipate any amount of confusion about this, added to which are the legitimate worries of night bars where the noise plod wait for the stroke of midnight to go and hound anyone talking above a whisper on a terrace while having a smoke.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Ash Wednesday: Volcanoes and smoking

“Here come further hurricanes.”

When I said this a couple of days ago, in the context of the new corruption cases, little did I know that a major natural event had occurred – on the Wednesday. Hurricanes, well very strong winds and storms, have been known to hit Mallorca, but the fallout – if not literally, then metaphorically – from a volcano blowing its top is the last thing you expect. As though things couldn’t get worse – cree-sis, cree-sis still persisting – along comes an event on a biblical scale. Act of God, as the insurance companies will be insisting. One should appeal to a Higher authority. Please, God, don’t give the locals any more excuse to reach for the blades. “Un desastre.” When isn’t it “un desastre”? Actually it isn’t un desastre – in Mallorca. What would be, would be a volcano suddenly erupting in the centre of Palma. That would be a disaster. But un desastre it is, because flights have been grounded across northern Europe. And this means that tourists have been grounded – in other countries. For one car-hire agency at least, the volcano has been un desastre. That was how the boss described it to me, at any rate. No tourists arriving, no vastly inflated hire-car charges to be made – allegedly. Un desastre.

What could though be a greater desastre would be if this damned volcano decides to carry on exploding. Iceland has form in this regard. Long it may have been since the last great outpouring of ash, but it continued to do so for a couple of years. The Mr. Spocks, the vulcanologists, cannot be sure if the pattern will be the same this time around, but if it were to be and were those shards to be knocking around in airspace, then regular “desastres” might just be on the cards.

Poor old Iceland. Cod war. Lousy weather. Bloody big blokes who haul cars. Bank failures. Frozen foods. Not a lot going for it, other than Björk. So they take it out on everyone else.

Volcano – all that’s needed.

Meanwhile … more ash. The Spanish health minister has said that a total ban on smoking in public places will be implemented “from June”. No precise date, just from June (so maybe, say maybe, that 22 June date was right after all). This, at any rate, was how “The Diario” had it, referring to the fact that the ban would come in prior to the completion of other “sessions”, meaning … who knows. Elsewhere though, it is said that there will be a period prior before the full introduction of the ban, i.e. after June. Yet again, smoke rings of confusion waft into the air. The reporting is contradictory, but this is probably because the messages coming out of government are. There needs to be a clear announcement about this, but you wouldn’t bank on there being one. I’m sorry to have to say this, but this confusion is typical of Spanish legislation. Badly communicated, unclear, added on to something previous that may or may not still apply. Poor. Very, very poor.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Ooh, Isn’t He Bold?

Bold. Boldness. New tourism minister Ferrer is going to be bold. Or at least he said something along these lines several times when addressing the press at the Fitur tourism exhibition in Madrid. This boldness will involve “profound re-developments”, the breaking of “old habits” and a speeding-up of bureaucratic procedures as they affect hotels and their ability to undertake modernisations. Bold words. We’ll see. To Ferrer’s credit, though, it might be recalled that he was one of the mayors – following the hotel collapse in Cala Ratjada and the kerfuffle regarding the lack of a building licence – who admitted that work on hotels, in Alcúdia, regularly went ahead without all the requisite licences because of the tortuous bureaucracy and paper trails between town halls and government. One of the strengths Ferrer is meant to bring to the post of tourism minister is that, having been mayor of such an important tourism town, he has a wide appreciation of issues facing the tourism industry. We’ll see.

Whether Sr. Ferrer has an opinion about the impact of a smoking ban, one doesn’t know. But the argument is now raging on both sides, the national anti-tobacco committee having weighed in with its pack’s worth, stating that visitors from countries with strong anti-smoking laws cannot understand or indeed accept the current permissiveness in Mallorca and Spain. The committee flatly rejects the idea that a ban would cause the “total ruination” of the bar and restaurant sector. Well it would say this, but it is probably not wrong, and it has come up with figures in respect of the effect on employment that followed the previous tightening of smoking in bars and restaurants. It had been argued that this would result in the loss of some 23,000 employees; there was, according to the industry ministry, an increase of some 100,000 employees between 2005 and 2007 (the previous law kicked in on 1 January, 2006). One might, though, say that the previous law seemed to be largely ineffective; there was little major change, certainly in Mallorca.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Smokey And The Banned-It: Part Two

Following up on yesterday’s piece about the smoking ban, the local health minister has dismissed – as you might expect – the idea that this will lead to “total ruination” of the bar and restaurant sector. She has also sought to remind everyone that the ban is part of a wider European Union-inspired drive to enforce total prohibition in public places in all countries by 2012. When all else fails in the winning of hearts and minds, blame it all on Brussels. She has also been at pains to point out that more stringent enforcement has been applied elsewhere, such as in the UK, so that’s alright then; it’s all a question of degree. Where she has more justification is in pointing out that a ban has not proved to be particularly harmful in Italy, another grand smoking country, and though the measure has proved to have popular support in Italy, she might have added that Italian bar owners have been adept at finding the odd loophole. Without naming them, she says that bans have resulted in increased numbers of customers in some countries. It might be interesting to know which ones.

As always, it comes down to how politicians want to spin the issue. Sra. Buades (the health minister) has not seemingly referred to the Croatian backtracking or to the lack of enforcement in Greece, but despite all this, one can pretty much safely assume that the ban in Spain, and therefore Mallorca, will go ahead, albeit that no date has been set.

On this topic, my thanks to Dave for drawing attention to the harmful impact of the smoking bans on country pubs in Scotland. He calls for “more freedom to choose, less proscription”. Amen to that, whatever the cause, only problem being, Dave, that Europe ain’t going to let there be a choice.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Smokey And The Banned-It

The smoke-don’t smoke argument is hotting up. The glowing embers of a cigarette tip threaten to become a mighty conflagration, if predictions are correct as to the impact of the proposed smoking ban in public places. The trouble is that these predictions are of course self-serving. They verge on the apocalyptic. The Balearics restaurant association is forecasting the “total ruination” of the bar and restaurant sector.

The law on no-smoking in bars and restaurants has yet to be enacted. Exactly when it might – or might not – be brought into effect is still not clear, though it is meant to be this year, a year that, according to the Spanish hotel and tourism association Exceltur, will be worse than last year in terms of tourism. In other words, recession is still wreaking havoc, and the last thing that’s needed is a smoking ban.

Whether the prediction regarding this year’s tourism is indeed accurate is open to debate. A strengthening pound and the Euro concerns caused by the Greeks could yet see a turnaround in Mallorca. Personally, I would question the prediction. Further evidence that might rebut it comes from increased consumer activity in the UK, while the great competitor – Turkey – has its own problems, those of supply. Nevertheless, the timing of the smoking ban may not be the best. A question is, though, when would be the best time. Never, if the bar and restaurant owners had their way.

The total ruination that the federation believes will occur will manifest itself in the form of a ten per cent drop in turnover, which doesn’t sound like total ruination. But on top of takings reductions over the past couple of years, a further 10% drop would be significant.

One has, however, to distinguish between different markets and different types of bar or restaurant. For the tourism restaurant market, a smoking ban would be unlikely to have much impact for the simple reason that the ban is not due to be applied to terraces, which is where most tourists eat. That non-smokers on a terrace may have to continue to suffer nearby smoke is not really an issue. They have long had to endure this, with no discernible effect on restaurant trade.

Where a ban would be most likely to have a detrimental impact would be on smaller bars which either have no terrace or only a small one and on nightclubs which cannot allow terrace business after midnight (or maybe it’s eleven – who knows for sure?). The federation is probably right to highlight “locales de ocio nocturno” as being the sector of the so-called “complementary offer” that has most to lose from prohibition – to the tune of 15%.

In the case of the smaller bars, there should be genuine concern. Both tourist and resident markets could be affected by a ban, especially the latter. Yet this raises an issue regarding the overall supply of bars and cafés, of which there are too many. Perhaps a shake-out might be deemed a good thing, though this is a pretty heartless argument. Moreover, unlike, for example, the impact of all-inclusives which has been and is one of changed market conditions, the impact of a smoking ban would not be. A smoking ban is a form of societal engineering that creates an arguably unfair market condition.

In the UK, if a bar goes to the wall as a consequence of the smoking ban, it can be argued that alternative forms of business or employment exist, given the great diversity of the UK market as a whole. The same conditions, however, do not apply to somewhere like Mallorca. The apparent over-supply of bars is largely a consequence of economic necessity. A smoking ban may be as prejudicial to the wider economy as much as it is to small bar owners. In Croatia, another of Mallorca’s great competitors, a total ban introduced last year was partially reversed because of the apparent harm that it caused. And Croatia is hardly a highly diverse economy either.

The saving grace, at least where tourism is concerned, may be that visitors from other countries are now used to not smoking when out at bars or restaurants, so that any change in Mallorca would not be a great issue. However, it is the case that some visitors enjoy the liberal smoking laws that currently exist. Or maybe one is making too much of all this. And maybe the federation is as well. In the UK, habits have changed. Far fewer people smoke than used to be the case, the result of publicity, education and also a smoking ban. Tradition, of sorts, it may be for the Mallorcan bar to be a smoker’s haven, but were it no longer to be, then would that really be such a bad thing?

Smoking bans elsewhere –
Bulgaria: a total ban in public places is due to be introduced as from June this year.
Croatia: a law banning smoking in bars etc was reversed in September last year, allowing for either designated smoking areas or, in the case of small bars, for owners to choose if bars are smoking or non-smoking (as is the case at the moment in Mallorca).
Cyprus: a ban in public places came into effect at the start of the year; as with the Spanish proposal, smoking can continue on terraces.
Egypt: who knows? There was a ban imposed in 2007 in “public places”, but it has not been enforced. In practice, there is none.
France: smoking rooms are permitted but with strict conditions.
Greece: there have been similar provisions as to those now in Croatia, but enforcement is lax. A total ban was supposedly imposed from 1 July last year, but there has been a backlash.
Italy: as in France, strictly controlled smoking rooms are permitted but are rare, and in the country generally tough restrictions have proved to be popular.
Turkey: smoking has been banned inside bars and restaurants since last summer.

World Cup Song

Further to yesterday, I received a comment bigging up a thing called “Green Fields Of England” by George and the Dragons. Here it is – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_9WJ6WKeS4.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.