It's so strange sometimes watching tv shows and movies from the 90's where you see characters smoking indoors in public places.

Like in Seinfeld you will have episodes where Kramer is smoking in offices....and even in the doctor's clinic! There was an episode where Kramer took out a cigar and smoked in a doctor's waiting room. I thought he would immediately get in trouble but none of the other characters cared.

And then you got movies from back then like Jackie Brown (which is a great movie by the way) where you see character's smoking in a mall cafeteria. A mall! A family friendly environment! And it's considered normal!?!?!? Blows my mind.

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torben-friis 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

It is hard to overstate how common that was in the nineties, at least here in Spain.

Clouds would come out of family bars and diners when you opened the door. Movie theaters and art galleries would have people smoking inside as it was part of their intellectual aesthetic. During weddings giving out Cuban style cigars as a present was assumed. Schools would not allow it officially, but every bathroom and teacher lounge would clearly smell from the people hiding for a smoke. Same for hospital waiting areas and bathrooms. Trains had smoking and non smoking wagons, which people complained about, feeling smokers were being ostracized. Beaches were full of cigarette buts to the point that accidentally stepping on a not yet cold one was a common concern. Not "going for a smoke" at work was considered socially isolating, and particularly for men saying you don't smoke would lead to others questioning your heterosexuality in a non PC manner. Teenagers would start smoking around the family as a "proof of adulthood" as soon as they had their first part time job to pay for it.

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cjrp 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Smoking on airplanes is the one that just seemed like an accident waiting to happen. And yet there were (relatively) few incidents caused by cigarettes.

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black_knight 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I heard that air quality on planes was better back then (maybe someone who was alive then can confirm). Because of smoking they had to ventilate the whole aircraft much better. While these days I feel like they are just starving us for oxygen so as to not have to heat up fresh air.

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michaelbuckbee 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Old person here. I think it's really hard to convey the extent to which smoke literally permeated everything. It's not just the immediate air quality aspects of it, but there was just a residue on all the surfaces, every cushion and fabric held onto the stuff.

I can recall the week that no-smoking indoors at restaurants/bars passed and it was literally shocking to walk into a place and not have it be hazy. It really felt weird.

Anyway, air quality + quality of life was much worse. Sometimes the future does get better.

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JKCalhoun 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I had also heard that during regular aircraft inspections, the residue from cigarette smoke made small cracks and such in the airframe obvious.

Today that sounds to me like urban folklore (or Big Tobacco folklore).

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chris_st 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Nope, not better quality if you don't like the smell of cigarettes.

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05 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Turns out using less engine bleed air is good for fuel economy, so now it's 50% recirculated HEPA filtered (which does nothing for the co2 contents) air.

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xattt 5 hours ago | parent [-]

How does this work for all-electric planes like the 787?

	▲	05 4 hours ago \| parent [-]
		[dead]

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phs318u 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Lol. I was 14 when I took a long distance international flight on a 747 in 1979. The family was sitting in the “non-smoking section”. I can tell you for a fact that the air quality in that plane was terrible. Possibly because a number of passengers in the non-smoking section still deigned to smoke. Whaddaya do eh?

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vintermann 5 hours ago | parent [-]

There seems to be a door smoker effect to this day, where smokers are drawn to smoke just inside of the areas you aren't supposed to smoke.

	▲	tialaramex 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		It's an addiction, they're compelled to smoke, and so at the edges of the area they'll light up. That's how the Kings Cross Fire started. Escalator full of potential fuel, smoker drops a used match, it falls inside the machine, fire. It wasn't legal technically to be smoking on that escalator, but it would have been legal in a few paces so "everybody" did it. The investigators found signs that such fires had likely started or almost started many times before, the disaster was just that this time it burned for long enough to create a pool of extremely hot gas flowing up the inclined ceiling for the escalator, and we got to discover the Trench Effect in the least fun way possible.

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m-i-l 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Or smoking a cigar in an oxygen rich spacecraft cabin, as per the opening scene of the original Planet of the Apes (released in Feb 1968, after the Apollo 1 fire in Jan 1967).

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sfdlkj3jk342a 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

You don't have to go back 30 years to see it. Just take a shared taxi in Sumatra. Most of the men and some women will be smoking. Inside the car. With the windows closed. Sitting next to babies and young children.

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IdiotSavage 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

The Sixties where the time!

in the office: https://media.cnn.com/api/v1/images/stellar/prod/14040813590...

in university: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1315981/mediaviewer/rm154904524...

in airplanes: https://media.cnn.com/api/v1/images/stellar/prod/15032513024...

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js2 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

"You're too young to smoke. You're going to set this whole place on fire."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ma_XNn1bwOM

https://movies.stackexchange.com/questions/2620/how-do-they-...

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acc348 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I was recently watching some TV show and there was this one scene in maternity hospital. The doctor(!) was smoking while talking to the main character. Insane for today's standards.

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5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

[deleted]

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socalgal2 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

You can still smoke indoors in public places in many places in the world

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notabotiswear 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Airplane!, 1980.

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petesergeant 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I remember transatlantic flights with smoking sections

	▲	ArnoVW 5 hours ago \| parent [-]
		The day they introduced non smoking (late nineties?) a friend of mine found out as the aeroport. He made a big stink, canceled his ticket and booked a new flight for Amsterdam - NYC with the only company still allowing smoking: Aeroflot. He spent the better part of a day, flying via Moscow. The next time he had to fly he grudgingly accepted it. Sometimes even Shaw's unreasonable man has to come to terms with defeat.