Smokers forced outdoors in Italy

Italians, banned from smoking in indoor public places, were forced to take their habit outdoors yesterday and one persistent puffer became the first to pay for breaking the law after it took effect at midnight.

The new law prohibits smoking in restaurants, bars, offices and factories, aiming to end passive smoking and deter those who pursue a habit that health officials say kills 90,000 Italians a year.

Some smokers looked on the bright side. Forced to go outdoors, they revelled in Rome's sun.

"It's right that people don't smoke around those that don't want it," union worker Fabrizio Scada said during a smoke outdoors at the Pizzeria Val di Sangro. "But the way it's been imposed smokers are being ghettoised."

The new law allows smoking only in special sealed off rooms with smoke extractors but fewer than two per cent of Italy's restaurants and bars have them.

At least one has paid for lighting up. A young man in Naples became the first person fined for breaking the new law shortly after midnight.

Local media said he was forced to pay €27, an amount that can rise to €275 if children or pregnant women are present.

Cafe owners are threatened with fines of up to €2,200 for failing to enforce the ban. They are legally obliged to report stubborn smokers to the police but have resisted.

Trade association Confcommercio plans to challenge the law in the courts.

"Other European countries which have a socially liberal past don't have such oppressive rules. Why should we?" Confcommercio head Sergio Bille said in Corriere della Sera newspaper.

In Western Europe only Ireland and Norway have similarly strict bans, introduced last year. Some Italians have baulked at the law which they feel smacks of American or northern European puritanism.

The law's author, Health Minister Girolamo Sirchia, himself a former smoker, said cigarette manufacturers were conducting a covert campaign to resist anti-smoking measures.

"The tobacco multinationals are behind many of the protests," he said, adding that the law respected that smoking was a right, but with limitations.

"The law does not ban smoking, but restricts the places where it is possible to do it. I never dreamed of introducing an absolute ban."

But those who fear that the new law might be just the start of more state controls on unhealthy activity may not be convinced. Mr Sirchia added he would now consider measures against alcohol, such as a ban on advertising.

Ultimately, the smoking ban's success will depend on the will of the people, rather than force, Mr Sirchia admitted.

"Be tolerant, avoid conflicts and the use of lawyers. Politeness is the best way of convincing someone next to you to put out a cigarette," he said.

In some bars, that might prove harder than in others, one bar owner told Il Mattino, the newspaper of Naples, home of the feared Camorra organised crime group currently in the throes of an all-out gang war that killed more than 115 people last year.

"It's not an easy task," he said when asked how he would deal with a young gangster determined to light up in his bar.

"I don't want to risk four bullets in my leg."