h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I think it must be added that very few swedes smoke. They take snuff. If you're a smoker and gets invited into a swedish home you have two choices: Either you walk outside when you feel a desire smoking or you go to the kitchen and put your head under the cooker hood.
Please comment this since it's just something I've read somewhere...
Any swedes to confirm ?

True. Alot of Swedes smoke, and it's not really polite to start smoking in a room full of people in Sweden if you're in the home of someone else without asking if it's okay.
If it's your own home, it's a totally different matter, though.Most of the time, smokers gather outside or under the kitchen fan, though.

Well, altough we have "snuf" in Sweden not everyone uses it. The most common "user frienly drug" in Sweden is infact ciggarets. It's like this. In bars and on parties every swede smokes indoors, but at home and when invited somewhere on a regular day you always take the trip outside, and not very often crowd up under the kitchen fan.

I have to partly disagree with you, Hobit.
Smoking indoors at parties depends on whos party you're at. If the person that's hosting the party is a non smoker, or him/herself smoes outdoors, most people will be asked to either use the kitchen fan, or to step outside to have a smoke.
At bars, though, I agree.. Everyone that smokes, smokes indorrs in a bar.

I might be moving to Stockholm next year and I don't smoke, so I'm wondering. Are the bars/restaurantrs like in France, where non-smokers are treated rather like those old sufferers of the Bubonic Plague? Confined to our own little corner like lepers?

All public places in Sweden (including restaurants and cafés) are non-smoking, where the designated seats are not for the non-smokers, but rather for the smokers. That's accoding to the law, at least. Bars and pubs usually don't care that much about it, so everyone can smoke anywhere in bars and pubs.
Even though there are a lot of smokers in Sweden, no one will treat you like a weirdo because you don't smoke. As long as you tell them that you're a non-smoker, that will be accepted. By most people. There are always rotten apples who doesn't care, but that's life in general, isn't it?

Aaaah...
I smell civilisation!

Though many bars/pubs/restaurants (a decreasing amount) allows smoking mostly anywhere, you as a guest has allways got the right to complain about smokers in the non-smoking area.
If people wont listen and the staff wont listen you actually has got the possibility to claim a discount or even the money back for the meal.

Well,it is true about the `sticking your head under the cooker hood`.
I have a friend in a place called Haninge,which is about 8 miles from Stockholm.
She insisted that I should smoke under the `hood` in winter,otherwise,it`s the balcony for me in summer.[She abides by these very same rules,as she smokes too]

Sorry to butt in on your conversation, but if
Researcher "Alski"
would go back to there own page and then click on the "EDIT PAGE" button and then write a little something about your self, as this will activate your page and then a ACE can come and welcome you there properly
Sorry for interrupting your conversation

Manda

Ah, Alski- you've got an ACE-ing coming on!

I am an Englishman living in Sweden.

The issue of smoking has confused me greatly during my time here. Generally, in someones home, the outside/hob hood method is widely accepted, although I myself smoke indoors with the wanton abandon of any Englishman in his own castle. This is, however, not always allowed. In the new apartmnet I have just moved to. smoking is not allowed at all indoors. I am blessed with a balcony which is nice in the summer, but a right royal pain in the arse in the winter.

Furthermore, smoking has ben banned in all bars, cafes and restaurants, despite the fact that if there was any real demand for it, surely there would have been one somewhere in the country- which there wasn't! The bars I used to go to are noticably quieter than I remember, and the joy at which the Swedish press expresses in its reports that the ban is such a success is based on the reactions of those that still go to bars. The opinions of those that refuse to go to these establishments anymore are igmored.

For my part, the Swedish government can slap themselves on the back, as hard as I want to slap their faces. I buy beer and cigarettes from Finland, quite legally, and get a free cruise thrown in on the deal. Become a member of www.vikingline.se

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