Smoking hazard

When I stopped smoking two years ago, I also stopped having to sit in grubby little cafes for a coffee, sharing the hazy atmosphere with other like-minded individuals who needed the nicotine buzz.

Giving up was made easier by the new experience of sitting in an air-conditioned environment away from the noise and bustle and enjoying a coffee and a daily paper.

I began to explore potential sites and came across the new McCafe that adjoins McDonalds at Sarinah. Although I have a proud dislike of just about anything McDonalds has to throw at their customers, I was forced to admit that their new cafe was pretty good.

The location was strategic, the staff were friendly and the prices were not too ridiculously high. I took to frequenting the cafe for my morning coffee and paper, until one day the Management of McDonalds decided to allow the smokers in.

The odd assortment of regular coffee drinkers from the basement area trickled in to inspect the new spot, followed by the victims of the 3-in-1 policy from the neighboring offices, as well as the young crowd that have been thoroughly brainwashed into believing that smoking cigarettes is trendy.

So there you have it. McCafe is now a smoke-filled haven for the basement dwellers, who are now obliged to nurse the coffee a little longer than the ones bought downstairs, due to the slightly higher prices, and the trendy cigarette-toting office workers, who have their heads in the nicotine smoke-filled clouds anyway. Smokers' paradise!

The non-smokers who wish to enjoy a coffee, meanwhile, are now relegated to the back of the cafe, and like their fellow non- smokers, the children and other patrons of McDonalds as well as the staff, have been given the new role of "passive smoker".

And just to ensure that McDonalds continues to strive to provide its customers with the worst that American fast junk-food outlets have to offer, the air conditioning will redistribute, at no further charge, the tiny particles of cigarette smoke made up of about 4,000 chemicals of which more than 60 are known to cause cancer, to all the other customers as well, including the children.

JOHN CHRISTIAN TORR, Jakarta