Spain's Famed Tapas Bars Go Smoke-Free

MADRID -- Spanish sidewalks are crowded with smokers forced to light up outdoors for the first time today, after their government imposed one of the toughest smoking bans in all of Europe, bidding farewell to the smoky haze that used to envelop Spain's famed tapas bars.

The ban went into effect Sunday, at the end of the New Year holiday weekend when most cafes and businesses were closed. Today is the first real day of business under the new ban, which prohibits smoking in all restaurants, bars, cafes, airports and discos -- and even some outdoor spaces like park playgrounds and near the entrances to hospitals and schools. Hotels are still allowed to reserve about a third of their rooms for smokers.

"It's too early to tell how it will affect my business," one Madrid bar owner, Carlos Zamarron, told AOL News. "I suspect it'll be bad for business but good for everyone's health in the long run. But if there's one thing Spaniards like, it's a cigarette with their morning coffee."

Other business owners are angry, saying the ban puts them in an uncomfortable position in which they have to order longtime smokers out of the bar, or pay a fine themselves. Fines for smokers or bar owners who fail to uphold the ban range from 30 euros ($40) to up to 100,000 ($133,000). It's too early to know whether any fines have been doled out yet.

"I'm worried because if someone smokes here, I can get in trouble. Why does the government create this situation for me?" asked Jose, the manager of another Madrid bar. He refused to give AOL News his full name, saying he's still unsure whether he will implement the ban, and he doesn't want authorities to come after him.

Customers who exit for a cigarette are more likely to head home instead of coming back inside to order something else, Jose said. "The crazy thing is that I'm still allowed to sell packs here," he said, gesturing to a huge cigarette vending machine along the wall of his narrow bar. "But I have to tell them to go outside if they want to use them."

Spain is the European Union's fourth-largest tobacco producer and has been relatively slow to adopt anti-smoking laws that are now common across the continent. The country only banned smoking in workplace in 2006. But by 2012, all 27 EU member states are required to ban smoking in public, enclosed areas.

An estimated 50,000 people die each year in Spain from smoking-related illnesses, Health Minister Leire Pajin said, according to The Associated Press. Of those deaths, about 1,200 a year are believed to be nonsmokers who've been exposed to secondhand smoke.

Anti-smoking groups say the new ban will save thousands of lives each year. But restaurant industry groups fear the new law could cost them the equivalent of $8 billion a year in revenue and lead to the layoffs of more than 100,000 workers, The Christian Science Monitor reported.

Spain's economy is already reeling from the global crisis, with people struggling under widespread public austerity measures. More than 20 percent of workers are unemployed.

Among them is a 36-year-old smoker who preferred to be identified only by his initials, J.M.F., out of fear that his unemployment would embarrass his family. Nursing a beer at a bar at midday today, he said the smoking ban was just the latest blow, after losing his job.

"There are so many of us employed here in Spain, let us at least smoke our cigarettes! Allow us that privilege," he said with a sarcastic smirk.

Asked about whether Spain's smoking ban wasn't inevitable, given similar such laws across Europe, J.M.F. said: "Spain has always been a little different, with a bit more freedom. That's why tourists come here. And frankly it's all we have, our spirit," he said, laughing. "Especially now that our cigarettes are gone."