Taking food and drinks to smoking booths now looking unlikely

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It now seems apparent that customers are not to be allowed to bring drinks or food into the smoking areas in restaurants, even though some Members of Parliament have been in favour of such permission.
     
The permit gained a distinct minority of votes in the Social Affairs and Health Committee, which gave its proposal on the issue to Parliament on Tuesday.
      The government has proposed a total ban on smoking in restaurants. However, the proposal would allow setting up separate booths for smokers, where no drinks or food would be served. This would protect both restaurant personnel and customers from exposure to passive smoke, while leaving a possibility to set up separate smoking areas for those patrons who do smoke.
      Earlier in the spring, the Parliamentary Employment and Equality Committee was nevertheless considering whether to permit customers to bring their drinks to smoking rooms, as the outright ban would be difficult to monitor.
      Moreover, the Parliamentary Constitutional Law Committee decided last week that occupational safety should be implemented using other ways than prohibiting customers from bringing drinks or food into smoking booths.
      However, the Social Affairs and Health Committee, headed by Valto Koski (SDP), came to the conclusion on Tuesday that the smoking booths would need the same kind of cleaning, service, and monitoring as the present smoking areas in restaurants do, and consequently, the employees would still be exposed to ambient tobacco smoke.
      Furthermore, the committee noticed that also customers would stay in smoking booths longer if they were allowed to eat and drink there.
     
Finally only three out of the 17 members of the committee were in favour of allowing customers to take food and drinks to smoking booths.
      On the other hand, the opposition disagreed on the transitional period. According to the law, small restaurants with no smoking areas would have to implement the ban already in June 2007, whereas larger restaurants which already have special smoking areas would be allowed a couple of years' time to build special booths before putting the new legislation into effect.
      The National Coalition Party would impose a transitional period on all restaurants until the summer of 2008, while the representatives of the Green League, the Left Alliance, and the Christian Democratic Party would like the new legislation to apply to all restaurants immediately from June 2007.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Taking drinks to smoking booths may be allowed after all (9.3.2006)

Helsingin Sanomat