Julio Godoy
BERLIN, Feb 20 2008 (IPS) – The future of a ban on smoking in public places in Germany is in doubt following a court order limiting application of any ban.
Germany became one of the last European countries to introduce a ban on smoking in public places at the start of this year. But the constitutional court of the federal state of Rhineland-Palatinate ruled Feb. 12 that one-room bars would be exempt from the ban on the ground that it would drive their owners bankrupt.
The court decision is provisional, and the judges want proof whether this differential treatment can be justified.
The court allowed arguments lodged by five small pub owners of Koblenz city, some 460 kilometres southwest of Berlin, who said the ban on smoking would force them to close down.
We are not against the ban on smoking, Winfried Krahwinkel, one of the bar owners who went in appeal told IPS. What we want is the freedom to tell our customers that this is a bar for smokers. Then, they can decide whether to come in or not.
After years of debate, the German federal government decided in the fall of 2006 not to pass a general ban, arguing that health was a matter for local state governments.
Under several state laws introduced Jan. 1, smoking was allowed in pubs, restaurants, coffee houses and discotheques only in designated rooms with a special exhaust system. Smoking is banned in public places such as train stations, airports, offices, schools and other public buildings.
Only Thuringia, of the 16 states, has still not banned smoking in public places. A law there should come into force in July 2008. In Saarland state, the prohibition came into force Feb. 15.
In most states, owners have been given until Jun. 30 to create separate rooms for smokers.
Some experts see the ruling by the Rhineland-Palatinate court as a first step towards revoking the ban on smoking. Wilfried Blume Beyerle, administrative counsellor of the city government of Munich, 500 km south of Berlin, called the law a mistake , which has missed its target.
Beyerle said at a press conference Feb. 15 that he believed the laws banning smoking, in their present formulation, will be overturned. He said hundreds of bars and pubs are transforming themselves into closed clubs for smokers .
Meanwhile courts all over Germany have been receiving complaints from bar and restaurant owners, and from smokers, that the ban is limiting their economic and individual rights.
The complaints are being supported by the German association of hotel, restaurant and pub owners (DEHOGA, after its German name), which has the backing of the international tobacco industry.
DEHOGA has set down a model for complaints, but says it is acting only on behalf of bar and restaurant owners. Many landlords complain to us that they are about to lose their business and the very basis of their economic existence, because of the ban, DEHOGA managing director Ingrid Hartges told IPS.
DEHOGA has been campaigning for years against a ban on smoking. In the 1990s we successfully blocked 10 legal proposals to ban smoking, Hartges told the food magazine Gastrotel in July 2005.
Following the ruling in Rhineland-Palatinate, DEHOGA and its political supporter, the Liberal Democratic Party (FDP, after its German name), have renewed their campaign against a ban. At the least, we should leave it to the bar owners to decide whether a bar or a pub is for smokers or not, and to their clients whether they go in there or not, FDP whip Martin Lidner said at a press conference Feb. 13.
Most states passed a partial ban in the face of official reports that some 130,000 people die every year in Germany from tobacco-related diseases such as cancer and heart attacks. An additional 3,300 die as victims of passive smoking.
With the exception of Austria and Luxembourg, and to an extent in the Netherlands and the Czech Republic, practically all European countries have banned smoking in public places with positive effects on public health.
A study released in Italy this week showed that heart attacks have fallen by 7.9 to 11.2 percent thanks to the ban on smoking passed two years ago. Similar results have been found in other countries.
