Some weeks ago I reported on my recent trip to Paris, and how the smoking ban was affecting smokers there. Since then I have had to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous Government legislation, along with my fellow smokers in this country, but to be fair, the weather here has been so mild of late, that it has been a pleasure, rather than a pain, to be forced outside to enjoy a smoke. Even so, I still couldn’t wait to get back to my spiritual home in Spain, in the hope of experiencing even better weather than we have been experiencing here, and of course to see how the recently introduced smoking ban is affecting our freedom there.
Andalucians on the whole, are a strong race of people who don’t take easily to bans and restrictions of any kind. If a sign says ‘No Perro’ (no dogs), then you can guarantee you will find at least half a dozen of our fury friends scampering around this area, leaving neat little piles, resembling melted sausages, while their owners look happily on as they stand and chat to their friends. This same mentality also applies to car parking, where drivers park completely across zebra crossings and street corners, if normal parking is unavailable.
How then, I wondered, would they take to the recently introduced smoking-ban? They won’t accept it piecemeal, as we have done, not the strong, rebellious Spaniards surely?
Malaga Airport has always been somewhat anti-smoking, so I accepted that, but when I got into my hire car and found two separate signs, one on the window and one on the ash-tray, of all places, stating ‘NO SMOKING’ I immediately peeled off the ‘NO’ leaving just the ‘SMOKING’ bit. That will at least confuse the next person to get that car won’t it?
My first port of call was, as always, a fishing port called Torre del Mar, where I always stop off for lunch at El Yate, which is my favourite restaurant along that coast, selling every type of fish and shell fish imaginable, and also where Raffa, the owner, smokes non stop, as well as the bar staff. El Yate boasts a very large outside seating area, which as usual, was packed to capacity; our table was reserved there, as we had booked it by phone when we picked up our car earlier. Naturally, almost everyone in our area was smoking, it is outside anyway, so no change there then, but when I glanced inside, which is an enormous bar area, with just a few stools for seating, and was packed to capacity, absolutely no one was smoking, not even Raffa, who came to the door to smoke his cigarette. What was happening here I wondered, especially with Raffa, he who displays photos on his wall of his wild boar hunting exploits in the mountains, and drives an enormous Jeep, nearly as big as a London bus? He is a real Andalucian, a man in every aspect; maybe he knows that the police will be paying him a visit, I thought, but I am afraid to say that this wasn’t the case, for I visited El Yate on quite a few occasions while we were there, and this, I am afraid to say, was the situation every time.
Further down the coast, in Almunecar, which is in the province of Granada, and where I have never seen a policeman patrolling the streets, apart from those in cars, the situation seemed the same, but as the majority of bars and restaurants have outside areas, it didn’t seem to matter to most people. There is however one little bar called Los Pajaritos, in a very narrow and sloping backstreet. Definitely no room for an outside area there; just the owner behind the bar and his wife and daughter in the kitchen. The place is packed with locals, mostly standing and drinking beer from bottles, as he never offers you a glass, toilets are behind two tin doors, which lead directly into the smallest areas imaginable, and the noise from chatting and laughing plus the constant din of the corner TV is unbelievable. He won’t stand for this silly no smoking nonsense I told myself, not old Pararitos Joe. The first thing that caught my eye as we walked in was the old glass ashtrays placed all along the bar. Hooray I thought, at last, I knew Los Pajaritos wouldn’t let us down – but I am afraid to say it did; the ash trays were now being used for discarded prawn heads, and other pieces of tapas.
Doing the tapas trail is the recognised way of drinking and eating in Spain, each drink gets you a free tapas, and you get to meet many different people and eat all sorts of food, so from Los Pajaritos, we made our way to several other bars, all of which are outside, so once again, no problems there. It was while standing outside La Gala Bar that I noticed a new bar just across the street with a huge crowd outside. A new bar to me is like the proverbial red flag to a bull, and so within minutes we were over there, and pushing our way onto a rail that provided seating for us. Now this is where it gets interesting, for as I looked inside through the open window, sure enough there was a woman and a man, standing there smoking. They were close to the window, where the woman kept flicking her ash outside – but legally they were inside, and the owner didn’t give a hoot!
I was so impressed with the woman’s attitude that I tried to take a photo of her. I told her what I wanted it for, and I explained all about Forest in the UK, but instead of her staying in there and carrying on, she decided to come outside and join us. She was from northern Spain, which is known as the most politically correct part of Spain, where they are mostly left-wing, do not like smoking and have banned bullfighting; in other words, bloody boring! My wife and I went back to that bar on a number of different occasions after that, but didn’t unfortunately see the woman again, so I never got my photo of her, committing her ‘dreadful crime.’
Another town, which I quite like is Nerja, which is a lot more touristy than the other towns we visit, but does have a number of good tapas bars. This was a must, as you do get quite a lot of English people there, many of whom have been doing their hand waving dance since way before the ban, so I considered Nerja a must, on my journey of smoking discovery.
In the past, Nerja was known for its many fine restaurants, and there are still a large number of very good restaurants there, but over the past few years, habits have gradually changed, and more and more people are doing the tapas trail, and eating for free. As this has happened, so more and more tapas bars have opened up – all with outside seating areas. On this visit, even more had opened, especially at the western end of the town, which was absolutely fabulous for me, trying all these new tapas bars, and with no problems whatsoever regarding smoking.
There is however, one bar, called Posada Iberico, in Nerja where I have been going for many years, and know the owner, Paco, very well. I used to love ending our evenings in Paco’s, drinking Torres Diez Brandy, which he introduced me to, and smoking a good cigar, so off we went to Paco’s to suss out the situation there, bearing in mind that like Los Pajaritos in Almunecar, Paco’s is also situated in a narrow alley.
To my great disappointment, Paco had also succumbed to the ban, even though, once again, he is also a strong smoker. The first night we tried there, it was closed, although it was barely 11 pm, the second night, we tried it earlier, and found just a few people in there. I joined Paco out in the alley, where we both smoked cigarettes and spoke of the injustice of the ban, which has all but killed his business. The only gesture towards being smoker friendly was an ashtray placed on the seat of a motorbike parked outside. After a few visits, over the next few nights, mostly reserved to no more than two drinks each time, I think I managed to talk Paco into opening a window up, and having a shelf built outside, as a sort of mini-bar there. He said he intends doing this within the next week or so – we will see!
In the meantime, if I wanted to smoke a cigar, which normally takes an hour or so, and enjoy a brandy or two while doing so, we had to make our way back to one of the newer bars that have been purpose built with outside areas to accommodate smokers.
In a strange way, the smoking-ban has helped smokers in Spain, well at least in Andalucia, as more bars have been opened, but what worries me, is the small bars like Paco’s; will they end up like our British pubs, closed and eventually turned into shops or flats, or maybe even left empty and deserted?
My verdict then for smokers visiting this part of the country, is that there isn’t a major problem, but that is due mainly to the fine weather there for nearly all the year, not to their Government listening or trying to be fair, for they have a left wing Government, that are vary familiar in their outlook to our old Brown administration – and we all know where that led us to don’t we!
