Landslide defeat for anti-smokers in Bavarian state election

Bavaria – Munich, the Alps, lots of beer, the alleged “toughest” smoking ban in Germany and a strong resistance against it, as we reported.
Thousands of tolerance clubs where you can legally smoke, some demonstrations, and increasing discontent with Nannyist government among the Bavarian people.

That set the context of the state elections on September 28. All three parties represented in the state parliament so far (Christian-Social union - CSU, Social Democrats, Greens) had voted for the smoking ban. But the main blame is to be put on the dominant force, the CSU, which has been endowed by the voters with an absolute majority since 1962 and won a whopping 61 % at the last elections in 2003. Formerly THE people’s party in Bavaria and a symbol of the Free State of Bavaria like pretzels or the Hofbräuhaus, the arrogance of power seduced them into health dictatorship.
The politically calm and to some extent even said to be apathetic Bavarians usually don’t get angry at their CSU leaders. But too much is too much. Smoking bans in their local Wirtshaus and next year in beer tents as well? Maybe even legislation on their beloved alcohol and food? It had become high time to give those that had lost touch with their constituents a slap on the face.

And what a slap, right in the face of the antis!

The CSU lost 17,3 % of their votes, not just their worst result since 1954, but also the heaviest loss of a party in any German state election since 1950. Ending up with just 43,4 %, they lost their absolute majority and need a coalition partner now.
The Social Democrats, also proponents of the smoking ban, booked their worst result ever in post-war Bavaria, and the Green Party, the most fervent supporters of smoking bans, could not reach their electoral goals either.

Winners of the elections were the Free Democrats who had loudly opposed the smoking ban during the campaign, and the Free Voters who alsohad critized this measure. Both parties received about 10 % of the votes each.

Certainly, the smoking issue was not the only reason for the historic defeat of the CSU in Bavaria. But is was a crucial one, and for many voters, it symbolized a broader picture of arrogance and state intervention into the privates lives of the citizens, and of policital changes to the worse. Some rascals are thrown out, and the CSU, pressurized by the Free Democrats as the likely coalition partner, will have to revise the smoking ban.

Smokers have shown their electoral power and relevance, they have raised their middle finger in a way that actually hurt the politicians. Well done!

P.S.: Forces Germany, as well as other groups and initiatives, had put a lot of effort into mobilizing and educating the Bavarian voters during the campaign. We launched and promoted a special website, and spread more than one hundred thousand printed copies of “Neues vom Schelm”, a periodic publication with issues about the passive smoking fraud and the damages done by smoking bans.

The situation in Bavaria

On January 1st, the “toughest” smoking ban for the hospitality sector in Germany came into effect. The Bavarian one. Separate smoking sections are not allowed, in all bars, restaurants, discotheques and beer tents, the fascist “solution” we know from the British Islands seems to prevail.
Quite a change for the typical Bavarian “Wirtshaus”, the traditional place to drink huge steins of beer, to eat “Schweinshaxn”, to play cards and to have a smoke. Next year, beer tents, including the huge ones at the Oktober, are to follow that road to Nannyist perdition. In an unprecedented effort to ‘re-educate’ their citizens, the dominating party, the Christian-Social Union (CSU), once led by the internationally (in)famous Franz-Josef Strauß, imposed this ban on the Bavarians.

But how “tough” a ban is it at second glance? Well, the law applies to hospitality venues “as far as they are publicly accessible”. When and if only a restricted group of people may enter a room, the owner can is allowed to decide about smoking. This restricted group can be the members of a club or, for instance, the invitees of a wedding party.

Many landlords and –ladies reacted immediately or after a few weeks or months: thousands of Smokers’ Clubs have been founded all over Bavaria, many of them part of the “Association for the Preservation of the Bavarian Hospitality Culture” (VEBWK), which alone has about 80,000 customers as their members. This organization used their strength in numbers for forceful political lobbying.

Many clubs only cover one bar, restaurant or discotheque so that many people who want to go out have multiple memberships of smoker’s clubs. But we should call them ‘tolerance clubs’ instead because smokers and non-smokers alike go there and enjoy freedom.

In fact, some people even complain about their purses stuffed with so many membership cards. Others are proud of that (see picture). A mayor of a Bavarian town mentioned that his teenage daughter (a non-smokers) carries at least a handful of these membership cards with her when she goes out with her friends.

The density of tolerance clubs varies from town to town and from region to region. In the Bavarian capital, Munich, an estimated one third of all locales are clubs of that kind.

Access for tourists, e.g. readers of this blog, might be a more difficult issue. Some clubs require membership applications prior to entering the venue, others allow instant admission by signing a form at the entrance. The annual fee of the state-wide VEBWK is 12 Euros, smaller clubs often offer free membership.