No ban on smoking in coffeeshops!

June 9, 2007 – Amsterdam

Breaking News!

The ban on smoking in public areas gets more widely spread every day all over the world. Now the Netherlands is on turn. The Dutch government has announced yesterday (June 8, 2007) that smoking will be prohibited in all cafes, pubs, clubs, restaurants and hotels etc., starting July 1 2008.

Except the coffeeshops..!

Although the ban does not apply on coffeeshops, the part of the coffeeshops where the sale of cannabis takes place must be smoke-free. It’s also not allowed for personnel to serve food and drinks in the smoking area. This is to guarantee that people who work in coffeeshops can do their job in a healthy environment. It’s unclear to us how the smoke-zones get cleaned…

So the new rules do have some consequences; the shops have to build some kind of wall to separate the smoke-free zone from the area where it’s allowed to smoke. But at least, the possibility to smoke stays!

If smoking in coffeeshops had been banned also, some people suggested that would come pretty close to the end of the famous coffeeshops because the visitors of coffeeshops simply come there to smoke.