It's an Israeli thing
Not really in my neighborhood it doesn't happen
It's a specific type of community thing
Uh huh, which is why I've been experiencing it wherever I've been, in
either country. It's illegal in both, btw. There are simply places where no one has the energy to enforce, and places where they do.
Fond memories of being asked by Rav Osher Kalmanowitz to go tell the fellow smoking under an awning near his shiur room window to go elsewhere. (His asthma is atrociously bad - he very nearly did not survive COVID. B"H he recovered.)