The given law was proposed by the Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero and his Socialist Party and was approved by 189-154 votes, also was turned down a Senate amendment which permitted casinos to have smoking areas.
From January 2, all bars, cafes and restaurant will be transformed into non-smoking areas, thus bringing Spain to conformity with the European Union’s toughest anti-smoking nations and other states that prohibit smoking in enclosed public places.
“We have to start to become more civilized and modern,” said a smoker. The given law will make Spain one of the toughest places than many other EU countries where is still allowed to have smoking sections. The given law will also ban smoking in outdoor places as playgrounds and the territory around schools and hospitals.
The previous anti-smoking law that was adopted in 2006, and targeted at eradication of smoking and smoking related diseases and deaths, banned smoking in workplaces. But many declared that that law was a failure because it permitted to the majority of bar and restaurant owners to decide whether to allow smoking or not, and almost all of them allowed it.
Bar and restaurant owners will not have that privilege and those who have smoking sections will have to get rid of them. Government officials forecast that thousands of lives that would have been lost because of secondhand smoke will be saved due to this new law.
