Spain Update
Spain Passes Tobacco Law, But Bars to Stay Smoky
December 16, 2005
MADRID – Spain passed a law aimed at cutting smoking in public places on Thursday, but bar owners plan to exploit a loophole to make sure their bars remain havens for Spain’s millions of smokers.
In Spain until recently it was not unusual to see doctors smoking in their surgeries, but now the government has made it obligatory for restaurants and bars over 100 square metres (1,076 sq ft) to set up non-smoking sections next year.
Smaller venues have to choose whether to ban or allow smoking on their premises and many owners of small bars, which dominate Spanish night life, say they have never even considered opting for a ban.
“If I want my business to work then I’d better let people come in and smoke,” Alfredo Amarilla, owner of Taberna de Conspiradores in the popular La Latina district, told Reuters.
He said most of his regulars smoked.
The manager of El Tomas, in the same area, agreed.
“We want people to keep smoking and drinking … The way people think in this country is ‘I won’t go to a bar where I can’t smoke’,” Jose Barcena said, speaking soon after the new law won final approval from parliament.
The law in Spain, where the government says a third of the population smokes every day and 50,000 die from tobacco each year, is much softer than legislation in countries such as the United States, Ireland and Italy.
The new Spanish law also bans tobacco advertising in all media, outlaws smoking in offices, schools and shopping centres and raises the minimum age for buying cigarettes to 18 from 16.
CHILDREN BANNED FROM SMOKING AREAS
Children will be banned from smoking areas in venues larger than 100 square metres and the law gives local authorities the power to ban children from small bars where smoking is allowed.
That possibility has enraged some bar owners in Spain, where families often take their children to bars and cafes.
“Who am I to say whether someone can come in here with their child? I’m not responsible for the child,” said the owner of La Cava de Illan bar, where the rich odour of cured Spanish ham overpowers the lingering smell of smoke.
Health Minister Elena Salgado said on Thursday she wanted the new law to reduce smoking by 5 percent in two years.
But 30-year-old jewellery designer Josefina Suarez says Spaniards will be reluctant to change.
“Spain is the country where we have the most vices, where people drink most, where they smoke most, where you go to most parties. That’s just typical Spain.”
Story by Emma Ross-Thomas?
Spain prepares for smoking ban in workplaces
13/12/2005
Spain launched a campaign today to make smokers aware of the need to respect no-smoking spaces, two days before parliament was expected to give final approval to a ban on smoking in the workplace.
The last puff saloon?
Spain is about to ban smoking in the workplace and fine bars and restaurants without smoking areas. But will it really work?
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We have all been there before. You are in the middle of a great dinner, savouring the way Spaniards eat well so effortlessly.?
You have just finished your main dish and are perhaps sipping a decent red wine.
Then someone at the next table lights up and somehow, no matter what you do, the smoke billows over towards you.
This happens not infrequently in Spain, even though officially less than a third of the population still smokes. Smoking in general is still tolerated and, with a few notable exceptions, lighting up in restaurants and bars is not frowned upon.
But all this is about to change.
Spain, one of the few countries in Europe where smokers may still indulge their habit almost anywhere, is moving to drastically restrict tobacco use in most public and many private places.
This week, smoking was banned on train journeys of less than five hours by Renfe.
The Socialist government will ban smoking in workplaces and in bars and cafes without a designated smoking area, and end tobacco sales to minors.
Health Minister Elena Salgado announced a draft bill which should come into effect in 2006. The new law would replace current Spanish law, which, according to Salgado, is one of the “most permissive” in Europe.
The bill will include limits on sales and on print, radio and television advertising. The bill would also set up a system of fines for those who break the new law.
Cash from these fines will be used to finance anti-smoking programmes.
Salgado said that under the proposal, tobacco sales to minors would be viewed as “very serious” infractions.
Tobacco use is the “main cause of preventable death and illness” in Spain, according to Salgado, who added that the bill is aimed at protecting the rights of non-smokers and making it easier for smokers to quit.
The limits on tobacco use will distinguish between places where it is absolutely prohibited and others where it will be allowed only in designated smoking areas.
In general, smoking will be banned in public and private workplaces, health facilities and schools, indoor sports facilities, recreational and leisure facilities, and places where food is produced, prepared or sold.
The same ban will apply to lifts, telephone boxes, cash machines and bus stations, as well as to trains and ferries.
Smoking kills more than 50,000 people each year in Spain (or 16 of every 100 deaths among persons over 35), a figure that is higher than the combined number of fatalities from AIDS, alcohol, and traffic accidents.
So how have the Spanish reacted to what might be a seismic cultural change?
An editorial in the Spanish daily El Pais argued that the problem will not be tackled simply by tough legislation.
“The first obstacle is a cultural one; oncologists and cardiologists are always alerting us to the excessive social tolerance of tobacco, the biggest cause of avoidable deaths.
“If society finds the deaths of 4,000 people on the roads each year in Spain unacceptable, why not the deaths of 50,000 Spaniards from smoking at a cost of EUR 3.5 billion?”
Some believe a crackdown on smoking, particularly in restaurants and bars, is long overdue.
Isabel Maestre, writer of the authoritative Good Food Manual, considers smoking and eating out “dreadful”.
Maestre says: “We cannot have smoke in the atmosphere when we eat; we lose the tastes and the smells. And it is not right to smoke between courses.”
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Many believe the hardest part of implementing the new law will be in restaurants and bars, because many restaurateurs fear it will result in a drop in business.
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Jose Luis Guerra, spokesman for the Spanish Hoteliers Federation, pointed to the example of the ban on smoking in bars and restaurants in Ireland, where he claimed it had hit business.
Guerra said: “A system of self-regulation would work better than a drastic ban, which puts jobs at risk. We would advocate having good ventilation in many restaurants.”
Predictably enough, this view is not shared by the anti-smoking lobby.
Rodrigo Cordoba, president of the National Committee for the Prevention of Smoking, said: “According to a study, published in New York [which has banned smoking in bars and restaurants] these establishments have seen an increase in their takings by 23 percent since the law changed there.”
But Isabel Vison, author of the Gourmet Guide, commented: “In Spain they do not like to be told what to do and Spain has not got into the fashion of not smoking.”
[updated February 2005]
http://www.expatica.com/source/site_article.asp?subchannel_id=83&story;_id=13933&name;=The+last+puff+saloon%3F
Spain’s breath of fresh air
From next year it will be illegal to smoke in the Spanish workplace. And with a new report putting the country at the bottom of the class when it comes to combating smoking, it seems the move is long overdue. Graham Keeley reports.?
http://www.expatica.com/source/site_article.asp?subchannel_id=82&story;_id=3044&name;=Spain’s+breathof+fresh+air
Spain finally gets tough with smokers?
12 November 2004
MADRID-The Spanish health minister unveiled a wide-ranging new law to ban smoking in offices, hotels and other public places.
http://www.expatica.com/source/site_article.asp?subchannel_id=82&story;_id=13896&name;=Spain+finally+gets+tough+with+s
Catalonia to ban smoking in all bars, restaurants?
31 May 2005
MADRID – As anti-tobacco campaigners marked World Anti-Smoking Day, Catalonia said it is planning to adopt even stricter measures to curtail smoking than those due to be enacted in a nationwide law on tobacco consumption.
