EDITORIAL

Smoke-free bars

Smoke-free bars in Ireland: a runaway success

F Howell

Correspondence to:
Correspondence to:
Fenton Howell
Faculty of Public Health Medicine, Royal College of Physicians of Ireland, International House, 20-22 Hatch Street Lower, Dublin 2, Ireland; fentonhowell@eircom.net

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Banning smoking in bars in Ireland has proved extremely popular

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Keywords: Ireland; legislation; smoke-free bars

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

On 29 March 2004, Ireland became the first country in the world to implement legislation creating smoke-free enclosed workplaces that included bars and restaurants.¹ While the legislation involved all workplaces, with minor exceptions, national and international media attention focused on how the legislation would be implemented in bars. Many commentators looked on in disbelief and suggested that Irish bars, globally iconic for smokin’ and drinkin’, would be the last place on earth one would expect to see go smoke-free. If Irish bars could successfully go smoke-free, what was the problem elsewhere?

Ireland is not alone in having smoke-free bars. Since March 2004, Norway, New Zealand, Uganda, Bhutan, and Italy, have implemented smoke-free workplace legislation for all workers, including restaurant and bar workers. Before March 2004, considerable progress in implementing smoke-free restaurants and bars occurred in the USA (seven states) and Canada (five provinces) with further progress due in . . . [Full text of this article]

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