SMOKING HABIT

Hokitika Guardian, 10 May 1930, Page 2

SMOKING HABIT

CONTROVERSY IN MELBOURNE

SYDNEY, April 2«

A spirited controversy has been raging in Melbourne over the subject of smoking iii restaurants, i't seems that protests have been made to the Health' department against the growth of the habit by people who regard it as a danger to health. The Department has oeen constrained to point out that there is noth.rig in the law to prohibit smoking in earing places, and, anyhow, that it is not injurious to health. However, there were regu'ations to prohibit smoking by people who were preparing food, because of complaints that cigarette butts had been found in cake and bread. It would certainly seem that steps should be taken to prevent that sort of thing occurring. .Smoking in restaurants Is now general in Australia. Everyone does it, out more particularly the women. Women have not been bold enough to smoke their cigarettes while walking along the street and seem glad to enter restaurants for the opportunity it gives them to smoke rather than for the tea and cakes. One restaurant- keeper in Melbourne said it was strange that the protests against smoking in restaurants should come from women because it was the women who were responsible for the breaking down oi the barriers that existed between smokers and non-smokers in the prewar days. “There was once a time,” he said, “when every restaurant had its smok-ing-room in which men gathered and smoked in peace, but at the end of the war years girls invaded these .places, and also disregarded any notices prohibiting smoking which were conspicuously displayed in the dining-rooms. Eventually we discovered that any notices prohibiting smoking interfered with our business and so we fell into line and permitted smoking everywhere. Now we never receive complaints about smoking in our diningrooms. The only complaints we receive are about girls who powder then - noses while they are at the tables and comb their hair, and perform other acts relating to their toilet. We certainly think that this is more objectionable than smoking.” From a medical point of view there is nothing injurious in tobacco smoke. If smoke hung about a dining-room i„ is evidence of had ventilation, hut it would not affect the health of those who were occupying the room any more than it would if there, was no smoke.