New Zealand bans smoking in bars, restaurants

New Zealand has become the third country in the world to ban smoking in bars and restaurants.

New Zealand has become the third country in the world to ban smoking in bars and restaurants.

The South Pacific nation has followed Norway, Ireland and a number of cities in the United States on Friday in banning smoking in licensed premises to reduce exposure to secondhand smoke.

The new law extends a 1990 ban on smoking in offices, shops and public buildings to pubs, clubs, restaurants, casinos and school grounds, as well limiting the display of tobacco products in shops.

Under the new law, bar and restaurant owners are liable to fines of up to 400 New Zealand dollars if they do not take reasonable steps to stop people smoking indoors.

READ MORE

But health officials are relying more on peer pressure to enforce the law. A handful of officials will follow up complaints, during office hours, rather than troll the country's bars in search of wayward smokers.

New Zealand is hoping the ban will have the spinoff of getting people to quit. About a quarter of adults there smoke, well above a World Health Organization goal of 20 per cent but little changed from the number who were smoking at the time of the original ban in 1990.