This is a Smoke Free Zone

I am meeting up with a friend and her newborn, Lily, for tea next week. Since she is bringing her precious baby who is barely a month old and I've become more exigent about not inhaling second hand smoke in my current condition, we had to really think hard to find a completely smoke free venue. We have decided we are going to Chez Pauline; I simply cannot emphasise strongly enough what an unusual gem is this salon de thé. In a city perpetually under a nicotine fog, the place is a sanctuary.

A new law is to come into place in October when all public places, including cafes, bars and restaurants are required to have a completely separate area, with its own ventilation system, for smokers. We are already in September, and have we noticed any construction work in any cafe, bar or restaurant? "No" is the answer. Do we have confidence that the law would be effectively implemented in these premises by October? "No, probably not" is regrettably, the answer. Ever? A bet anyone?

Given there are more pregnant women in Buenos Aires than most developed capital cities, I am puzzled that there seems to be so little awareness of the grave harm nicotine, even when inhaled second-hand, can cause those fragile developing foetuses and the growing lungs of young children.

It breaks my heart every time I see a pregnant woman lights up or worse, a mother dangling a cigarette in her mouth while she is around her kids, some still in their prams. It is like watching a pregnant woman drinking hard liquor or an alcoholic mum downing her fix in full view of her impressionable kids.

What is wrong with these parents? Being parents does not give them the right to force their children to become passive smokers from conception and thereby damaging their health for life!

Now, let's try to look at the same problem but in a way maybe better understood by the porteñas; namely, through the angle of vanity...

Bluntly put, señoras y señoritas, you smell bad; you smell like a dirty ash tray. If that's not unattractive enough, your cigarettes are giving you creepy looking crepe-like skin! Especially those vertical lines you have or are developing around your mouth. That is what smoking has done to you; it causes pre-mature aging of your skin. Coupled with all those homogenous holidays in Punta del Este and visits to solariums, you have become one of many leather-handbags walking around this town.

On the other hand, if you don't smoke and over tan, you will not need that face lift which may turn you into Dr. Frankenstein's bride. So, por favour, if not for the love of your kids, at least for the beauty which you have known as skin-deep; quit smoking now.