Greece: Breaking an Old Habit

A popular song urges Greek revelers:

"Ola spasta, ola kapsta [Smash all, burn all]." The notion obviously strikes a chord in the Greek soul. As viewers of the film Never on Sunday will recall, tipplers in the portside dives of Piraeus punctuate their drinking contests by breaking glassware, plates and occasionally furniture. In Athens' best clubs, people like Aristotle Onassis have been known to pay as much as $700 in damages for a single noisy evening of crockery tossing.

A well-smashed plate expressed approval of the local bouzouki music as well as the manly exuberance of the thrower—presumably well-fueled on ouzo, the potent, anise-flavored Greek liqueur. Performers measured their success by the depth of the debris around their feet. Taverna owners loved it, since they were able to pay their bands by selling crockery to customers for up to a dollar a plate. In recent months, however, good times à la grecque were getting wilder than ever: bored with just breaking things—and perhaps bored, too, by the puritanical reign of Greece's military junta—merrymakers had taken to tearing off their shirts and setting fire to their own coats.

The junta officers have finally ordered an end to the fun. Appalled by what they termed "this barbaric custom," they decreed that anyone who "offends public sentiment by destroying or damaging movable objects" may now be forcibly cooled off with up to six months in jail.

Athens clubowners are despondent.

Some tavernes have already closed, and others may soon be forced to follow their example unless their musicians agree to share the losses by accepting smaller fees. One host tried offering patrons free plastic plates and cups to tear. The tranquilizer does not always work; a frustrated drinker in the capital's Skorpios tavern last week commandeered a dozen plates and had just finished shattering the last one when police grabbed him. It was the first arrest under the new decree. The word is about in the capital that some Athenians feel so blue about the latest blue law that at home they go into the kitchen and smash their own plates.