A CAFE offering the Middle Eastern-style water pipes to customers is the only premises in Scotland's largest city prosecuted under the landmark 'smoking in public places legislation' in its first decade.
The Limelight Sisha Bar in Glasgow's Tradeston area was fined £620 in 2012 after a series of raids and fixed-penalty notices by council inspectors.
Figures secured under Freedom of Information from Scotland's two biggest cities show the high levels of compliance with the act, which marks its 10th anniversary today.
In Edinburgh the city council has only issued 35 fixed notice penalties since 2006. The capital's authorities fined 21 individuals for either smoking in 'fixed premises or vehicles', while a further 14 venues penalised for allowing smoking in their businesses.
In Glasgow, the city council has been much more robust but still only issued an average of around 14 a year since 2008. Again, the majority of the 126 fixed penalty notices were to individuals. It also fined two premises for failing to have the appropriate signage in place.
Meanwhile, Scotland's leading anti-tobacco campaign group has used the 10th anniversary of the ban to debunk claims made by its opponents in the run-up to the legislation.
With another milestone in tobacco legislation, the introduction of plain packaging, just over a month away there have also been claims the tobacco lobby is using similar tactics to derail that.
Marking the anniversary ASH Scotland has quoted pro-tobacco lobbyists Forest claims from 2005 that children would face "hazardous risks such as fire, domestic abuse and household accidents that inevitably arise when people spend more time drinking at home".
Former independent MSP Brian Monteith had claimed the ban "can only lead to violence, if bar and restaurant owners have to try and enforce this stupid legislation themselves".
Another from evidence presented by the Scottish Licensed Trade Association to the Scottish Parliament warned that "no attempt has been made to calculate the cost to the country of providing pensions for smokers who live longer as a result of the smoking ban".
Jackson Carlaw, spokesman for the Scottish Tories, which was the only p[arty to oppose the ban as it passed through the Scottish Parliament, said: "The composition of the Conservative MSP group has changed considerably since this was passed. By way of example, I myself wasn't even one.
"But as the changes bedded in and became accepted not just by the general public, but voters too, that led to a switch in our own policy."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel