Spain passes law to ban smoking
The Spanish parliamentary commission passed a bill on Wednesday night to make all bars and restaurants no-smoking zones, bringing Spain in line with the European Union's strictest antismoking nations.
Published: 8:36PM BST 20 Oct 2010
Spain was Western Europe's last country where lighting up in indoor public places was allowed Photo: REUTERS
The law is expected to pass the Senate and become law on Jan 2. The law also will make Spain a tougher place to smoke than many other European countries where bars and restaurants are still allowed to have smoking sections, and will prohibit smoking in outdoor places such as playgrounds and the grounds of schools and hospitals.
The current law put in place in 2006 prohibits smoking in the workplace, and workers smoking just outside their office buildings are a common sight. But that law aimed at cracking down on smoking permitted owners of most bars and cafés to decide on their own whether to allow smoking – and almost all ended up doing so, leading critics to label the earlier law a total failure.
Those bar and café owners will now lose the privilege, and larger restaurants that still have smoking sections will have to get rid of them. Officials predict thousands of lives now lost to second-hand smoke in Spain will be saved. Bar and restaurant owners hope to win an exception in the law allowing them to construct hermetically sealed smoking sections, but the parliamentary commission voted down that option.
Hotels will be allowed to set aside 30 per cent of the rooms for smokers. The bill endorsed by Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero and his governing Socialist Party next goes for debate in the Senate where it is likely to be approved quickly or sent back with minor changes for approval in the lower house.
