It’s been over 6 months since I am living in Bratislava and there are few things that I loved about the city from the first few days. One of them is smoking. Here, most of the clubs/bars/pubs don’t allow people to smoke inside. Therefore, every time a smoker feels like having a cigarette, she/he has to go outside. After my whole adult life I had to take in a lot of smoke while going out, now I finally feel like I am respected, as an oxygen-only-inhaler.

This is how things work in Romania and Slovakia, by comparison:

Romania

Restaurant/bar/pub/club owners have to decide if they accept smoking inside or not. Most of them (not all) think that smokers are in higher numbers and they usually inclined to order more drinks, while non-smokers can handle a bit of smoke, so they accept it. They would never think that smokers can still come to their place if they would be asked to step outside for a smoke. Actually, I am not sure a smoker would actually consider that.

As a result, most of the places are full of smoke and have that distinct smell all the time, your clothes smell after a night out and you can’t even enjoy a dinner out without some tabaco smoke.

Slovakia

Restaurant/bar/pub/club owners have to take the same decision, but they usually go for not allowing smoking inside (not all of them). The way they see it, in this case, both smokers and non-smokers will visit their place, but smokers will go out occasionally for a smoke (this might also make them less than normal). Their place is not full of smoke, is cleaner and they don’t have to change ashtrays every 15 minutes. Win-Win!

During winter is even more interesting to see the places where smoking is not allowed indoors. Being quite cold out, there aren’t too many people on the streets at night, so you will always find a group of smokers having a cigarette near the entrance of a non-smoking place. Jackpot!