Nearly half of the coffee shops and bars in the Netherlands still allow guests to smoke.

Abstract: nearly half of Dutch coffee shops and bars still allow guests to smoke in their premises, according to data released by the Dutch Food Safety Agency NVWA on June 19th.

Although most service industries have official smoking bans, 49% of bars and coffee shops still allow guests to smoke, roughly the same number as last year.

The smoking ban in the disco is better. Smoking was banned in 60% of discos in 2011, and that proportion has now risen to 66%.

NVWA conducted 8420 surveys from January to May this year. In 942 surveys. They found defiance of the smoking ban, fined smoking in 762 inspections, and other coffee shops and bars were given written warnings requiring further investigation.

The smoking ban on coffee shops, bars and restaurants came into effect in July 2004. The current zhengfu waived the smoking ban for small coffee shops without employees in 2010 after small coffee shop owners objected to the smoking ban.