November 13, 2006

MADRID, Spain: Spain's Health Ministry on Monday lodged a court appeal against a Madrid regional bill that eases nationwide anti-smoking restrictions by allowing smoking in office and factory cafeterias and at private banquets.

A national law drawn up by the Socialist government, which came into force Jan. 1, bans smoking in the workplace but permits it in street bars of less than 100 square meters (1,100 square feet) and in restaurants with larger floor spaces but which have specially adapted areas.

Implementing the bill was left up to Spain's 17 regional administrations and most have done so with no changes.

But on Nov. 2, the Madrid government, which is run by the conservative opposition Popular Party, approved a reform of the law that would allow smoking in workplace cafes of more than 100 square meters (1,100 square feet). The bill would also allow smoking at weddings and other banquets in hotels and restaurants.

Health Minister Elena Salgado said Monday her ministry had appealed the Madrid bill to the Madrid region's highest court and has asked for the suspension of the Madrid rule. She also said t Madrid had been too lenient in applying anti-tobacco regulations, delaying them for six months and allowing smoking at private functions.

"It is a flagrant violation of the law," Salgado said. "It's not the time to request changes in the law, it's the time to defend the health of Madrid residents," she said.
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Office smokers of Madrid are allowed in from the cold

By Jane Walker in Madrid
Published: 25 February 2006

The temperatures in Madrid were hovering around freezing point this week, but this did not stop groups of shivering workers standing outside their office buildings puffing on their cigarettes.

Since Spain banned smoking in the workplace at the beginning of January, smoking in the street has become a common sight. One company estimated that workers leaving their desks to go outside to smoke was costing them an average of 25 minutes a day per worker. And smokers in 25-storey office buildings complain it takes them 15-20 minutes every time they go out for a quick smoke.

Spain is a country where bars, restaurants and offices have always been viewed through a haze of tobacco smoke and young people start to smoke in their early teens.

So it came as a shock when the Socialist government introduced legislation to ban smoking and the sale of cigarettes in most public places. Small bars and cafés can permit smoking if they display a notice in the window informing customers, but big hotels and restaurants are forced to provide a separate smoking area or stop customers smoking altogether. Smoking in cafés and bars in office buildings has been banned outright, hence the crowds standing in the cold.

But Madrid's autonomous government, led by Esperanza Aguirre - a critic of Spanish president Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero - has introduced legislation to allow smoking in restaurants and bars inside office buildings. In line with other venues, office buildings with bars of more than 100 square metres will have to provide a separate smoking area. Those under 100 square metres must ban smoking.

The new legislation also allows newspaper kiosks - and not just officially licenced tobacconists - to sell tobacco. The clause restricting the sale of cigarettes had been one of the most controversial aspect of the anti-smoking law.

Particularly hard hit were small village stores, which sell everything from groceries and tobacco to alcohol and lottery tickets, and newspaper kiosks which have always sold cigarettes along with their other goods.

"I think they are trying to put us out of business," complained one angry newspaper seller. "First they stopped us selling soft-porn magazines, then the anti-obesity clique said we couldn't sell sweets and chocolates because they make children fat, and now it is cigarettes. Lots of my regular customers buy a packet of cigarettes every morning with their newspaper. I certainly don't make enough money to live from the sale of papers and magazines."

He may well be right: the sales of cigarettes fell by 25 per cent the first week the law came into effect. The Hospital Carlos III reports that its nicotine addiction clinics are over-subscribed and the evidasintabaco.com website is booming.

But two sectors which have benefited from the ban are the pharmaceutical and confectionery industries. Chemists report that the sales of nicotine patches increased by 166 percent in January, followed closely by nicotine chewing gum and other non-smoking props - although the manufacturers expect them to level off over the next few weeks.

There has also been a boom in Kojak lookalikes sucking on their lollipops. The Spanish company Chupa Chups say sales have increased by 25 per cent.

Madrid regional govt. plans to ease smoking ban

Feb. 25,2006

Madrid's regional Government said on Friday it plans to allow smoking in some bars and restaurants located inside office buildings despite a countrywide ban on smoking in workplaces.

The proposal must go before a review board and a vote in the regional legislature before it takes effect, the Madrid health department said.

Spain's smoking ban, which among other things outlaws smoking in the workplace, was passed last year by the Spanish Parliament. But in a quirk of Spanish law, the details of implementing it are up to regional administrations.

The effort to ease the ban in the Spanish capital had political shades. Madrid's regional president, Esperanza Aguirre, who made the city's plan public on Thursday, is a conservative and an outspoken critic of Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero's Socialist party.

Jose Martinez Olmos, a senior official at the Health Ministry, accused Aguirre of violating the broader anti-smoking law and said he did not rule out a lawsuit.

Many office buildings in Spain have bars, coffee shops and restaurants inside them. Aguirre's bill would allow those with more than 100 square meters (1,100 square feet) of floor space to set up designated smoking areas.

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