Well, apparently, if media stories are to be believed, as of midnight on June 30th we can no longer light-up in bars or restaurants.

Well, I was enjoying a couple of beers and a few Luckies in a bar yesterday evening with no obvious signs of being criminalised for my actions.

My friend Roy owns a bar in my neighbourhood and has simply built a wall at one end of the bar with a doorway. On the other side is the new smoking room. About 5 times larger than the now-divided bar area, we can continue to enjoy participating in our bad habits, whilst playing pool, darts, one-armed-bandits, etc.

I read the letter that the Amsterdam council had sent out to the horeca. It was so wooly and ambigious in it's wording that it was almost as if the Dutch authorities, are only complying to the EU pressure of a smoking ban with words alone. Unlike other EU countries that have enforced a TOTAL smoking ban indoors with HUGE fines for miscreants, it seems the Dutch are attempting to ward off the anticipated loss of the suggested 50,000 jobs that the horeca quoted a few years back when the Dutch government suggested the idea of a smoking ban and then, upon hearing the horeca's figures, quickly retracted.

Anyway, I'll continue enjoying beer and cigarettes indoors at Roy's bar. Unfortunately however, I can see the demise of many of the smaller kroegs in my neighbourhood, who are simply too small to accomodate a seperate smokers room.

At least, from now on, I will have the opportunity to enjoy a beer once in a while without the literally "irritating" and "sickening" presence of "miscreants" who threaten my health all the ways they are capable of...

I'll teach you how to smoke if you want, Emilio!

I was a heavy smoker until ten years ago, up to three packs a day! Then I just stopped! I gained 10 kilogs in the process, which took me five years to loose...Now my lungs are clean and I intend to keep them that way!

I'm so happy about the ban, but I've only been out to one bar this week, so I'm curious about how how abiding owners will be.

Unfortunately, if there are no huge fines and no inspectors, the ban will fail...just like it did the first time they did it in Ontario. The second time they tried, fines were massive + loads of inspectors. Owners complied, people stopped complaining. If Canadians can go outside to smoke in -30 degrees, so can people here.

I'm astonished that countries like France have done this before a tiny country like the Netherlands.

The choice should have been left up to the owner of the establishment.
All you'd need is a sign up in the window saying 'Smokers not welcome' or whatever.
I'm a smoker and don't want to get in anybodys face about it so non-smokers shouldn't get in my face when they complain about it.
If I am in non-smoking company,I always ask if it would bother someone and don't mind going outside if it pisses people off.
The point is - there should be places smokers can go to enjoy a smoke...like a 'coffeeshop'.
If i don't like what goes on in an establishment - I don't go there.

Inspectors ? Isn't that a respectable way of saying 'snooper'?

The ban came into belgium a while ago now. Although, I have noticed that over the months the bars I have been in have now got a few tables for smokers again, whilst the rest of the place is non smoking.
There is a nice restaurant /bar in the forest near to where we live and I know the woman who is planning on buying this place, she has worked there for years.
She told me that when the ban came in they lost most of their best customers and were left with the miserable ones (her words)? Luckily now the weathers nicer people can sit outside and still smoke since there is a larger seating area outside so business is good. She was considering having something built for smokers to use in the winter.

I don't care about restaurants being non smoking, I think this is a good idea, but I must admit that I used to always really enjoy an Irish coffee with a cigar after my meal. (Luckily in the place in the forest they still kept the cigar box because they know I will ask) so last week I enjoyed my cigar and irish coffee outside in the sun in the middle of the forest, just great

I also know many shops in Belgium that have an ashtray under the counter for regular customers, even the pet shop LOL

I think it will be similar in NL.

Regardless of the ethics of smoking/not smoking unfortunately the financial aspects are quite bad. In the UK there are pubs, bingo halls and working mens clubs, closing down every week. This means loss of jobs and also the social fabric of some people's lives.

I also know in Ireland the pub trade is in a bad way, but of course I don't think this is being reported on - it's in the interest of the government to stop people smoking because of the financial implications regarding the healthcare, but if it means job loses for hundreds and hundreds of people I'm not sure if it's a good thing.

It's leaving pubs half empty most of the time with groups huddled outside in groups smoking, which means the non-smoker is left looking after the table and bags for half the evening, which is why more and more people are entertaining at home, which of course means smoking in the house which has health implications for people living in the house, especially children.

I do think there should be a choice, with a closed off area for smokers with good ventilation, which unfortunately has never been a strong point in Dutch cafes, who seem to have every window tightly closed, even in the summer, with no ventilation vents.

And the facts are smokers spend more money in a bar and are the ones who use bars more often - maybe it's a drinking/smoking combo.

I think the main point is that the ban provides a healthy and safe environment for the thousands of ppl working in HORECA.

Many of whom are smokers themselves ...

At the moment, the entire Irish economy is very far up pejorative creek with no sign of a paddle, so it wouldn't surprise me if the pub trade was suffering. I don't think you can blame the smoking ban.

In years to come we'll probably wonder what all the fuss was about... just wish it was done decades ago!

I don't think there's any reason to suppose that ppl working in the Horeca are disproportionally more likely to smoke than the general population is there? Admittedly you might say there are a lot of under 25s but even so there must be thousands of non-smookers.

I don't know whats worse for business though? Having 1 small room for smokers with a big window or having staff standing out in the street in their work uniform crouching on the floor or sitting on the edges of the pavement outside the shop they work for. Doesn't give a very good inpression for business either....

Last week, a crew needed to install rocks in the garden at work, and used a huge machine that shot them out like a gun - this created a HUGE thick cloud of dust. They didn't wear any googles or protective gear at all, just stood there inhaling all this crap. When you get your blood drawn, most places do not use gloves. I find the smoking ban for the sake of the employees strange given what I see as a general disregard for safety here. In the end, it's probably just another way for the city to collect fines from people who like to disregard the regels....

I suppose it has to be noted that those with addictive personalities are going to be those that are the 'best' customers of bars. So it seems most likely that drinkers will tend to be smokers too. Of course this is a bit of a generalisation and obviously it does not apply to everyone. So it seems likely that banning smoking is going to deter the more frequent drinkers.

What seems to be being ignored time after time when reading these forums is that the ban is for the sake of the bar employees and has nothing to do with the cutomers. I work in an office where there are several people who smoke, for some time now they have been made to smoke outside. Nobody is clamouring for special smokers offices (although I can remember work places where this did happen) so why should we now claim that the horeca is some kind of exception.

It has all kind of come a little late for me. I no longer attend bars or restaurants frequently enough for it to make a difference to me. The main reason for this is that over the years the Dutch horeca has shown itself to be unwilling to consider the non smokers and I had become sick of coming home stinking of cigarette smoke. Where is might start to make a difference for me is at concert venues.

"I think the main point is that the ban provides a healthy and safe environment for the thousands of ppl working in HORECA."

Exactly. Can you imagine any other working environment were a manager would say to employees;

"Well we are going to expose you to a deadly smoke that contains more than 300 toxins, is a known carcinogen, and contains a highly addictive chemical, oh and by the way, we are not going to give you any protective equipment."?

No, me neither - you'd go to prison if you tried that in any other walk of life.

**

The fall off in pub trade in the UK is not only due to the smoking ban. Supermarkets and outdoors have been selling beer at below cost-price as loss-leaders, which is one of the many reasons that in the UK 'staying in is the new going out'.

**

The smoking ban in the UK has caused a record 400,000 people to stop smoking, which will save 40,000 lives over the course of the first ten years of the smoking ban. So the loss of a few jobs in the industry is a very small price to pay.

Please read the thread....I made that point about 7 posts ago.

I agree with PurpleCow. Its about the message that is being sent out when we ban smoking in this way. The long term benefit to health as more and more reduce their smoking is considerable. If its easy to smoke then ppl smoke simply out of habit (this is from an ex-smoker). Smoking between courses at a restaurant for example. By not allowing smoking ppl will simply skip that cigarette simply because its too much hassle to get up and go outside. Even if lots of people don't stop comletely they will certainly be smoking less. As Wesley said, we will be looking back at this in a few years wondering what the fuss was all about. Just like the way we view those quaint films from the 50s showing middle-aged men in jackets and ties, crammed in the cinema and puffing away on pipe and ciggies!

Yes, sorry, I was kind of clumsy in what I was saying. What I meant was that there are consistently people on such forums who ignore that the ban is for the benefit of the horeca employees and not that nobody on this thread has made the point already.

If the primary concern is for the horeca worker and a side effect is a message that actually smoking is not really socially acceptable then I am curious why they do not start to restrict the use of tobacco products entirely. Perhaps we could have an amnesty period where people could apply for a prescription, after that time only those people with a prescription could buy cigarettes .