Smoking areas withstand attack

A Netherlands court yesterday dismissed a case aimed at closing down smoking rooms in small bars and cafés, according to an Agence France Presse story relayed by the TMA.

The action was brought by Clean Air Netherlands, which wanted to close down public spaces that owners can reserve for smokers in bars and cafés of less than 70 square meters.

These areas can be established provided they are not well-decorated, that no food or drink is served in them, and that they are fully separated by floor-to-ceiling glass partitions.

The lawsuit was originally filed in July in a Hague court.

Clean Air argued that the number of smoking areas in such public spaces was increasing.

And it claimed that these areas allowed people to see others smoking, which provided the temptation for younger people to enter the smoking areas to start smoking.

Clean Air used the World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) as the basis for its legal argument for a total ban, but the judges ruled that it was impossible to determine exactly from the FCTC whether a total ban on smoking should in fact be