Comments on: More than Hot Air: European Smoking Laws https://www.eurocheapo.com/blog/more-than-hot-air-european-smoking-laws.html EuroCheapo editors take on the world of budget travel. Sat, 06 Sep 2025 14:19:49 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=4.8.3 By: Susanne and Nicky from hidden europe https://www.eurocheapo.com/blog/more-than-hot-air-european-smoking-laws.html#comment-56331 Fri, 15 Oct 2010 13:25:20 +0000 http://www.eurocheapo.com/blog/?p=14457#comment-56331 Tom
Thanks. That’s very interesting. Perhaps no surprise that folk were still lighting up in Spanish bars and cafés as we don’t think there is any overall ban there. May be absolutely wrong, but we think the situation in Spain is that smoking is banned on all trains, but not on open station platforms (so a parallel with Switzerland there) and that only in the larger indoor cafés and restaurants is there a smoking ban, although it is of course open to individual owners of other (viz. smaller) establishments to implement a no-smoking policy on their own premises. We recall seeing some time ago a news story that suggested that legislation has been passed in Spain to introduce a nationwide ban on smoking in cafés and restaurants from early 2011. But as you so rightly observe, the introduction of a ban does not mean it is universally respected (just as some folk ignore speed limits). Thanks for the good comment.

]]> 14457 56331 2010-10-15 13:25:20 By: Thomas Meyers https://www.eurocheapo.com/blog/more-than-hot-air-european-smoking-laws.html#comment-56299 Thu, 14 Oct 2010 19:41:18 +0000 http://www.eurocheapo.com/blog/?p=14457#comment-56299 Hi Nicky and Susanne,

Thanks for your interesting piece. I’ve just returned from two weeks in Portugal and Spain. While bars and restaurants were smoke-free in Lisbon, I was rather surprised to find everyone still lighting up in Spanish bars and cafes.

Regarding transportation, smoking was forbidden on the high-speed train between Madrid and Cordoba, although in the station smokers did step out onto the platform to light up. When the train was ready to continue on to Malaga, however, the conductor blew a whistle and motioned to everyone to hop back on board.

Also, as I was updating our hotel reviews for Lisbon and Madrid, I was interested in smoking policies in the hotels. In Lisbon, the hotels are all non-smoking, while smaller pensions still allow smoking. In Madrid, hotels still have smoking rooms (and indeed, it seems that most rooms can be smoking rooms).

For more on this, check out this list of smoking bans. It seems that Spain has a ban in place, but many cities are not enforcing the laws: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_smoking_bans#Spain

Thanks,
Tom

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