Friday, August 25, 2006
Tenerife Chamber of Commerce asks for flexibility over anti-tobacco inspections
The Tenerife Chamber of Commerce considers the round of inspections that the Health Ministry will be undertaking in September in Canary Islands' establishments to verify their adherence to the Ley Antitabaco (Anti Tobacco Law), to be "precipitated". On the other hand, the Ministry says that there will not be one extra day given for bars and restaurants to conform to the law.
From September 1st, the obligation for establishments to have separate and perfectly compartmentalized areas for smokers comes into force. The law itself came into force on January 1st, 2006, but bars and restaurants were given until August 31st, to adapt their premises as necessary to comply with the law.
This only applies to such establishments with more than 100 square meters (only 10% of those in the Canaries reach this size) and who want to provide a smoking area for customers. Bars under that size can choose whether to be all smoking or all non-smoking (the majority locally are all smoking still.)
The principle difficulty that businesses, who do want to provide smoking areas, are encountering is in the basic structure of buildings, which is making it hard to properly separate the areas. The Chamber of Commerce is therefore asking for flexibility and wants the list of criteria that the inspectors will be using distributed to the sector, especially where the remodelling works will have a high cost or require businesses to be closed while the work is carried out.
The law also puts the bar owner in the role of vigilante, given that if someone smokes in an establishment where it is not permitted, the sanctions fall upon the bar if they cannot prove that they have taken "pertinent measures" to prevent the illegal conduct. For bar and restaurant owners, fines are between 601 euros and 10,000 euros, while for the smoker, the maximum is 600 euros.
The Spanish Hostelry Federation has already asked the Government for an additional period of grace of between three and six months for bars and restaurants to be able to adapt their premises.
At national level, only one in ten establishments has even applied for a licence to carry out such works. Meanwhile, the Ministry reminds establishments that they do not HAVE to do any works at all, if they just put up a sign on the door which says "Smoking Prohibited", i.e. entirely on the premises.
The problem, of course, is that bars and restaurants over 100 square meters do not want to turn away paying customers - whether they are smokers or not.
La Cámara pide a Sanidad flexibilidad en las próximas inspecciones ´antitabaco´
