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Health minister Edith Schippers is to do 'all she can' to make sure larger bars and cafes comply with the ban on smoking, she told MPs on Wednesday.

One option is to increase the fines, which currently vary between €300 and €2,400, the minister said.

The new government has already lifted the ban for cafes smaller than 70 m2 with no personnel.

But research indicates around half of the country's bars, cafes and night clubs now allow smoking. And MPs have called on the minister to clamp down on law breaking.

Schippers said she is not in favour of making breaking the ban a criminal offence and involving the police because it would be too expensive and generate too much resentment within the industry.

Nor does she back the setting up of a phone line where people can report cafes and bars which break the law.

The minister did say she would look at bringing in a ban on smoking in school playgrounds. Only one in three schools have banned smoking.

http://www.dutchnews.nl/news/archives/2 ... can_to.php

WTF, only one in three schools ban smoking, seriously? What's wrong with these people, or any society that allows (non collegiate) students to smoke on school property? What are they thinking, that it's ok for children to smoke? Again, WTF?
Where are the parents? Oh that's right, most parents these days see schools as day care centers and teachers as nurse maids. WTF?

I would hope the schools in question are high schools. Getting high schoolers to stop smoking is like getting them to eat vegetables and I suppose it's better that they light up near the school under watchful eyes rather than wander around getting in trouble because they want a smoke break.

Everyone over the age of 30 who when to high school in Europe probably had a smoking area...mine did. We survived.

Ron, leave the Dutch to make their own decisions.