Here’s another post I would have never dreamed of writing while I was still a smoker. But I’m really pissed off.

Its Monday night and I’m sick. I’ve been coughing for two days straight and its getting worse. My throat and lungs feel totally wrecked, thanks to the many smokers who visited the Barzilai Club on Harechev Street Saturday night [special thanks also to the management who did nothing to stop the smokers]. I was totally fine before Saturday night.

I went to Barzilai with a friend for the Kutiman concert, paid 60 shekels to get in, and waited patiently for the band to come on, enjoying the tunes the dj was spinning to warm up the crowd. More and more people started streaming in, and amongst them, many smokers. When I was a smoker stuff like this wouldn’t bother me. As more people got in and lit up it got so thick with smoke inside that I found it hard to breathe, and felt every breath go in and damage my throat and lungs. I wish I could have stayed longer, but it got too much.

The same night my little brother Avi, who made aliya three weeks ago, went to the Mosh ben-Ari concert at the Gymnasium club on Ben Yehuda Street. Needless to say tons of people were smoking there too. Read my previous post about the Gymnasium here. What I love most about this place is the big ‘No Smoking’ sign that’s nailed onto the wall at the entrance to the club.

The Barzilai Club and the Gymnasium are two of the most popular nightspots in Tel-Aviv, and it seems they enjoy some special immunity from the local authorities who are supposed to enforce the non-smoking law in public places. Its as if the selectors at the door won’t let the municipal inspectors into the club. Its as if the mayor is not on the guest list.

Now I’ve written about this before, and its painful to see just how little the Tel-Aviv Municipality is doing to enforce the non-smoking in public places law. The same thing happened at the Erika Badu concert last month at the Tel-Aviv Exhibition Grounds. It seems that in large places the non-smoking ban is not enforced. But as far as I understand it, the law specifically states that smoking in public places is illegal, i-l-l-e-g-a-l. So what’s the problem? Why is the Municipality not enforcing? Are the big clubs and party venues allowing people to smoke and just paying the nominal municipal fines, thinking that they would lose a lot more money if they didn’t allow people to smoke inside their establishments? Would people really stop coming to clubs and concerts if they had to go outside to smoke every time? I don’t buy that. I see almost all of the good bars and restaurants in TA that are enforcing no-smoking are doing just fine. Very fine actually.

I don’t expect the government to act. What can you expect from a Minister of Health who smokes? If I get really sick because of the smoking at Barzilai, can I sue them? Can I get the club to pay for my medical expenses? By the way, many clubs are closed down all over the country for illegal activity occurring inside them, like drug dealing, rape, extreme violence etc. Why are clubs not closed down for allowing smokers inside?

This post is turning into a rant, but I think I’ll get some of our reporters to look into the liability issues this week, and maybe we’ll also call the municipality and ask them why they’re not enforcing the law in such obvious places like the big clubs.

Besides, where are the anti-smoking activist groups? The ones like Linshom [to breathe] who post such victorious essays and stories on their websites but actually do very little.