Smoking in New Zealand

While I don’t recall lots of smokers during our vacation in New Zealand, there sure seem to be a lot now that I live here. Walking around town you see them down from the offices on a smoke break, you see them walking around doing errands, and they drive with those cancer sticks hanging from their mouths while on cell phone driving the car (need I remind you about my fear of the Kiwi drivers?). Still, not too different from the states.

Except that the entire country has banned smoking indoors. So bars and restaurants, all clear. Office buildings and stores, clean air. Colorado just went smoke-free indoors too, starting July 1. Just in time for us to leave! Here you’ll still find bars will add a tent-like structure onto outdoor patios, enclose everyone on that patio, and let people smoke out there. We learned this the hard way, meeting our first hopeful friends to watch a rugby match at the pub—only to find the bar indoors was packed but the patio was open, open to all the puffers. We spent 2 days airing out our clothes from 2 hours of that air. Therefore, much like the states, now you can safely stay indoors but if you want to go OUTSIDE, you have to deal with the smokers.

Even still, New Zealand businesses are getting a bit more drastic. Some employers are advertising now that SMOKERS NEED NOT APPLY for their jobs. Apparently the Human Rights Commission agrees! And the European Commission as well, which said last weekend that employers may legally be able to shun smokers because doing so was not covered by European anti-discrimination legislation.

The story made the evening news tonight with discussion of a loophole in the New Zealand anti-discrimination laws that may allow for employers to advertise and select non-smokers for their jobs. Employers in New Zealand claim that smoking is not a human right and they can, therefore, choose to hire only non-smokers. The story referenced the US and how smokers in the states cost employers money due to health problems and daytime breaks away from work: smokers are less productive.

One person interviewed in the story bellowed about what might come next, employers will be able to discriminate against alcoholics because they drink alcohol?? Sound argument, don’t you think? Not quite as sound as the next argument I heard, that a smoker’s rights group might have to get disability status for smokers because, after all, smoking and its related issues induce disabilities and require protections. WHHHAAAA??? Right now it’s only considered an addiction, but smoking as a disability has not yet been tested in court. Go for it, I say!

I remember moving into my office space this past April after working from home for years. The first thing I noticed was the pack of 3 or 4 smokers sitting outside in their chosen smoking area just off the main door—I had forgotten this lovely office sight after years of being away. In fact, both Sarah, my staff member, and I noticed them standing around while she and I heaved heavy furniture from my truck through the front door and into the elevator not 3 feet from where they stood. Did any of them bother to grab the door for us? Not during their break!! And question: Why do the smokers always choose to congregate near the front door? Why not the back door?? Anyway, every day, when I left or arrived at the office before or after some meeting, guess who was there to greet me with a cloudy gift. I never saw non-smokers out there taking breaks.

It’s pretty cool that New Zealand employers have the cujones to take on this issue, at the least it means Don and I will have one more leg up on getting jobs – when we decide to return to work!