Are anti-smoking laws going to get tougher?

It appears anti-smoking laws in Spain are just about to get tougher and the public is being prepared for it. This morning in ADN diario (Barcelona) and article reads: “The anti-smoking law has only saved 27€ per smoker”.  What the hell does this mean, you are thinking?! Well it means that given that you cannot smoke in many bars and restaurants anymore, you smoke less. However in the government’s eyes a pack a month less is useless and far from their objectives.

The department of public health considers: “Having bars of less than 100sqm allowing smoking is not sustainable in the long run”. The counsellor of Health, Marina Geli, already indicated that once all the effects of the anti-smoking law in 2006 are analyzed, Catalunya will act.

“We see the situation as unsatisfactory. The small bars have more smoke because smokers are concentrating there. We have the intention to go further and put severe restrictions into place. One option would be to equip the large restaurants and the small ones which have less space would not be adaptable.” This option is obviously rather controversial since most large restaurants and bars have already become smoke free because of the high cost they would have had to incur to adapt their premises to the new law, so now with the new option this would leave probably most if not all bars and restaurants smoke free…