Their building, their rules.
(...)
Well, fortunately, in Europe (in Portugal, at least) that's not quite like this... YET.
In a place I used to work, there was a voting on whether the new building we were about to move should be a "Green Building" regarding smoking.
This was a little BEFORE anti-smoking laws were passed in Portugal (around 2006, something like that). So, this "Green Building" hype was about people making some kind of formal agreement concerning smoking, IN ABSENCE of a smoking related law. And it usually concerned smoking INSIDE (for example, NO designated smoking areas - INSIDE).
Mind my saying: no sane manager would include something some rule like "no smoking anywhere, not even outside" in a proposal. That would put people off: "I'm going to vote for NO this time, until management comes up with a more reasonable proposal, than can accomodate for EVERYONE."
You see, here in Portugal, there are few truly rabid anti-smokers. There are some, I've met only two of them in the 20+ years I have smoked, but mainly people live and let live:
"I do not mind people smoking, as long as they do not disturb me. Smoking at your desk? No way, I share that room with you. Smoking at the cafeteria? No way, I want to enjoy a coffe and a little snack in a smoke-free environment. Smoking in an enclosed, smoking designated area INDOORS? I can live with that; I'm not going there anyway. Smoking OUTSIDE? Sure you can, it does not bother me at all. In fact, ideally, that's what everybody shoud do..."
This is how MOST non-smokers feel about tobacco and smokers.
In the mean time, the new smoking law was passed, BEFORE we moved to that new "Green Building".
So, you can imagine our surprise when we got a mail from management, stating that managers were "shocked" to see people smoking outside, in the patio, when there was a recent voting, "clearly" won by 51 (fifty-one!) percent of voters who have DEMANDED for a "Grenn building".
And that they they would instruct security staff to "remind" that to people who were "caught" smoking outside (as if they were doing something illegal)
Now, our smoking law FORBIDS people from smoking in certain places, but at the same time it states were people are ALLOWED to smoke. This is about "rights", you see? Non-smokers have the "right" to breathe clean air in an enclosed space. That's why smoking inside is forbidden. In return, smokers are ALLOWED by law (So, they have the "right") to smoke almost anywhere outside, where they are NOT harming, or reasonably disturbing, anyone.
For example, you cannot smoke even OUTSIDE in an elementary school - there are minor students in there, and there's the "bad example" thing of smoking, and so forth - but you can have a smoking designated area INSIDE, away from students. The law does not REQUIRE such a designated area, but it ALLOWS you to have one. And it takes a very odd combination in numbers of rabid anti-smokers vs few smokers in a given school to NOT have such a designated area.
In an university, there are no minor students, so you can freely smoke anywhere OUTSIDE - or even INDIDE, in smoking areas only.
Management got quite a lot of e-mails that day...
Mainly, "reminding" them that:
- The very concept of "Green Building" was now obsolete, because now there was a law passed by the Portuguese Republic exactly to adress smoking-related issues
- Even if it was not obsolete, NEVER in the original proposal was clearly stated that people would not even be allowed to smoke outside. The "majority" of 51% voters did NOT vote for that
- Since the law clearly stated were smoking was ALLOWED, then, within the law, ANY "reminder" from security stuff, under management orders, would be followed by a filed charge for harassment.
As you can imagine, I've never heard of ANYONE being "reminded", after that flood of e-mails...
