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Everyone has heard of it, some non smokers are happy, some smokers are pissed and a lot of people just don't care. The law's been here for a month now. Everyone who's been raving during this month saw the results; people spend the whole night outside.

Now, the first thing that comes to my mind when I think about this is that the government as no business telling business owners what to do, and non smokers who are afraid of smoke can just stay home. Unfortunately, we can't do that.

Actually, we can throw loft parties with 50 people where everyone will be able to smoke, since those parties aren't legal in the first place. The thing is that we can't smoke in raves anymore. Now, this is going to affect the scene in many ways. Some people will spend whole parties outside, some people won't botter to come, some won't care, and some non-smokers might just go out more.

Oh, and the rave goo will never be as bad as it used to be. Bye bye rave goo, we'll miss you....or not.

First, let's face it, some people are totally addicted to smoking, they smoke one cigarette after the other. Those people will either stay home, or smoke a bit less. Of course, as time go by, more and more smokers will quit. This is what happened in Toronto anyway, last time I was there, me and my friend where amongst the only people smoking in the street. Smoking just became un-cool. It's probably going to happen here too. People will smoke outside too, let's face it, most of the raving population goes out mostly for the social aspect, that means smoking outside will do for a while. Until winter comes back at least.

Now, I was just talking about the social aspect. Like it or not, a lot of ravers prefer being with their friends than dancing alone. That means that a lot of people, even non-smokers, spend a lot of time outside. This means two things. First, less people dancing, chilling, or actually partying inside, that's hard on the vibe. Second, and this one worries me, more ravers outside, in front of the venue. This screams: "rave here, bust me please!" The cops don't like people hanging out in the streets in the middle of the night. They tolerate it with the bars, but won't be so gentle when it comes to rave. Let's face it, they let us party as long as we don't botter anyone. 30+ people smoking in the streets do botter people.

Now, there might be an itty bitty tiny positive aspect to this. Those non-smokers who stay at home and argue that smoking is the devil. Those few for whom the law was passed, some of them might just want to rave. A fun thing about non-smokers is that they tend to have more energy, that means they dance more than the average smoker. We'll just have to see if it actually brings new faces to the scene. Hopefully it will.

Overall, the scene will be hurt by this. Smoking, like it or not, is an important part of going out. Even me, who quitted smoking, feels that there's something weird with going out now. We'll need time to adjust, and djs will have a harder time keeping the ravers inside to listen to their sets.

Now, I just want to see how they manage to work with the ins and outs at big events like bal en blanc...