Total ban on smoking in cafes and bars delayed by three months

‘In practical terms, it will be very difficult to make it by July 2014,’ Van Rijn has told MPs.

The delay has been caused by the slow processing of the legislation through parliament.

‘We are ready to do so and café and bar owners know it is coming,’ the minister said. ‘I will try and implement it as soon as possible, perhaps by October.

Small cafes

Once the ban is reintroduced, smoking will be no longer be allowed in small cafes and bars which are run by their owners.

It will only be permitted in separate sealed-off smoking areas without service.

Small bars and cafes run by their owners have been exempt on the grounds they have no staff.

The Dutch smoking ban was introduced to protect workers rather than public health in general.

However, the ban, brought in nearly six years ago, is widely flouted in bigger bars, cafes and nightclubs.

Just 57 percent of the Netherlands’ bars and cafes now keep to the ban on smoking.

Some 61 percent of discos and 88 percent of cafes which serve food are smoke free, according to health ministry inspectors.