Uncovering Mexico
Jeremy Schwartz is the Mexico correspondent for Cox Newspapers. He is based in Mexico City.What's on this page?
The entry titled "Going to Mexico City? Put that cigarette out!."
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Home > Uncovering Mexico > Archives > 2007 > October > 04 > Entry
Going to Mexico City? Put that cigarette out!
Mexico City likes to smoke. Residents smoke in restaurants, cafes, walking through the mall, in the stands at baseball games, at the airport and of course, in bars.
But all that is about to change as the Mexican capital is implementing a tough, American-style smoking law that will ban the nefarious activity from all public, indoor spaces. Restaurants and bars will be allowed to build no-smoking sections, which must be walled off from the rest of the building and have a dedicated ventilation system.
That will be too costly for the vast majority of the city’s hole-in-the wall taquerias, torta joints and cantinas. The city’s restaurant association has blasted the law as “drastic and arbitrary,” according to the local press.
And if the law is to succeed, it will require some drastic changes in the behavior of the locals. Some 40 percent of the city’s population between 12 and 45 smoke, according to the city’s 2006 Addiction Poll.
The smoking law is just the latest to be hailed by social progressives in Mexico City, where lawmakers have approved a gay rights bill and legalized abortion over the last year.
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