Tue, 9 February 2010
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THE HAGUE - Brothers Gerhard and Ronald Sannes, owners of Cafe de Kachel in Groningen in the north of the country, appeared before a district court in the same city where they admitted one count of contravening the oft-flouted law.
"We asked for a fine of 1,200 euros and a probation period of one year, during which time the bar will be closed for a month for any further contravention," prosecution spokeswoman Kerstin Smit told AFP.
The bar had been caught contravening the ban on six occasions, she said.
Gerhard Sannes told AFP the ban, which came into effect last July, created an unfair competition advantage for bigger establishments.
"We have a small bar with no extra space in which to build a smoking section. We have no staff (whom the smoking ban is supposed to protect)," he told AFP by telephone.
Sannes said Cafe de Kachel took the ashtrays off its tables for six weeks in July and August and saw turnover plummet by 60 percent.
"The earnings were so low that we just couldn't do it anymore. We had to put the ashtrays back. By October, turnover was back to its previous level."
There has been growing resistance to the ban imposed last July, as small bar and restaurant owners complain they are bleeding clients and revenue.
A grouping of some 1,200 small hospitality industry operators opposed to the effects of the ban have created a communal money pot from which to pay fines.
Tougher penalties were introduced in October, with inspectors given the power to issue on-the-spot fines of 300 euros for a first offence, followed by 600 euros for the second.
The Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority said in a statement this month that about 2,500 of the country's 11,000 bars were flouting the smoking ban.
Around a hundred people converged in Groningen from around the country Friday to support the owners of Cafe de Kachel.
Judgment will be delivered on February 20, said Smit.
Less than a quarter of the Dutch population of 16.4 million are smokers.
AFP / Expatica
The real issue is ANTI-SMOKER SCIENTIFIC FRAUD, not "freedom versus health." More than 50 studies show that human papillomaviruses cause over ten times more lung cancers than they pretend are caused by secondhand smoke. Passive smokers are more likely to have been exposed to this virus, so the anti-smokers' studies, which are all based on nothing but lifestyle questionnaires, have been cynically DESIGNED to falsely blame passive smoking for all those extra lung cancers that are really caused by HPV.
http://www.smokershistory.com/hpvlungc.htm
The anti-smokers have committed the same type of fraud with every disease they blame on smoking and passive smoking, as well as ignoring other types of evidence that proves they are lying, such as the fact that the death rates from asthma have more than doubled since their movement began.
http://www.smokershistory.com/newviews.htm
And it's a lie that passive smoking causes heart disease. AMI deaths in Pueblo actually ROSE the year after the smoking ban.
http://www.smokershistory.com/etsheart.html
The government has no right to restrict peoples' liberty without a compelling justification. The anti-smokers have no such justification, so THEY COMMITTED SCIENTIFIC FRAUD TO DECEIVE THE PUBLIC.
Well, I can see them all trudging to the voedselbank when they can no longer earn enough from their bars to support themselves and their families. Or perhaps the Powers That Be will find them homes and feed them when they can no longer pay the rent?
Watch out, Big Bro is well and truly watching you...
(and I don't even smoke)
PS. Hope the prosecutors don't forget to tell them there's a voedselbank for pets as well, just in case...
HPV? Please - bad science in defense of smoking. This isn't a shell-game; I don't have to choose one or the other to suit someone's lifestyle choices! I don't want to breathe anyone's second-hand smoke or have to clean my sweaters
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