Smoking is generally prohibited in usual places, i.e. schools, workplaces, airports, museums, hospitals, shopping malls, shops, public buildings, theatres, cinemas, petrol stations, etc., with rare exceptions (such as special smoking rooms in an office complex). At a smoky bar, Café Happy, a bartender called the new law an “expropriation” and said it was absurd for the government to ban smoking indoors. “They take your taxes, but say you can`t smoke,” he growls. Smoking is surprisingly widespread in Austria: almost a quarter of adults smoke daily. This leads to angry head tremors among doctors and shrugs (and probably a wave of cigarettes) from too many others. The legal smoking ban does not apply to open spaces (e.g. uncovered platforms or shelters for public transport that are under open construction). So for a long time, the government wasn`t interested in reducing smoking rates — and actually had an incentive to keep people addicted to nicotine. The smoking ban bans smoking areas and introduces severe penalties for smokers who smoke in smoke-free places and for owners of establishments that do not enforce the law.
In November 2019, the Austrian government adopted a comprehensive smoke-free policy, which also includes bars and restaurants among the premises covered by the ban. Until now, smoking was legal in small bars and restaurants and allowed smoking in restaurants larger than 50 square meters. This regulation also applies to hookahs and e-cigarettes. By adopting these measures, Austria has strengthened the implementation of article 8 of the Convention and the corresponding guidelines. “There is no discussion [in Austria] about tobacco taxes,” says Jakob-Moritz Eberl of the University of Vienna. “There is even more discussion here about sugar taxes.” He sees this primarily as a political failure, although the strong coffee tradition hasn`t helped. “In Austrian culture, we think about café culture – it`s normal for people to smoke there.” Meanwhile, alcohol consumption remains another major public health problem — one politicians are reluctant to touch, he added. Austria ranks second among OECD countries after Lithuania in terms of daily alcohol consumption, also thanks to low taxes and cheap alcohol. In 2009, when lawmakers began to take tobacco control more seriously, they found an absurdly flawed solution: a near-smoking ban that allows restaurants larger than 50 square meters to simply close an area where people can continue to smoke. (This, I can confirm, leads to installations that are still quite smoky.) Small outfits could be removed completely, allowing people to continue smoking.
By 2015, Austria had begun to catch up with the 20th century: a coalition government, represented by the Social Democrats and the conservative ÖVP, decided to introduce a total ban on smoking in bars, cafes and restaurants by spring 2018. The decision was rejected, among others, by the far-right Austrian Freedom Party, tobacconist owners and the leisure and catering industry. Ah. This was a somewhat controversial topic in Austria. The current state is that smoking is prohibited indoors. If you want to eat or drink indoors in a smoke-free environment, you can do so. All locations should now be completely smoke-free. Does the unusual popularity of smoking mean you can smoke freely in Vienna? Efforts have been made to enforce a general smoking ban, as in many other countries. The law was even in place to do just that. Then a new government came along and decided to repeal the planned law and maintain the status quo. Last May, there was a surprising twist in the story of Austria`s long road to a smoking ban: Strache, then leader of the FPÖ, was filmed apparently open to exchanging government contracts for positive coverage with a woman posing as a Russian oligarch. The coalition government collapsed.
The scandal known as the Ibiza affair had a surprising public health benefit: a transitional government enacted a smoking ban. Surprisingly, many skiers and snowboarders in Austria respect the smoking ban and crowd outside at sub-zero temperatures when they have to smoke. As you might expect, people still smoke indoors in many pubs, and we haven`t heard of fines imposed for smoking indoors. At present, enforcement of the smoke-free ban appears to be more dependent on pub owners and staff. It`s still early in the season, so we can`t promise whether or not your favorite après-ski bar will enforce the law. We celebrated in Obergurgl the opening of ski of Snowplaza and the ban was enforced by the security at this place. If you want to smoke while eating or drinking indoors, you can`t. You have to go out to smoke a cigarette. Many sites have installed outdoor radiators and chairs for this purpose (if urban planning laws allow it). The newly adopted measure will certainly contribute to a decrease in smoking prevalence, which has not really been observed since the ratification of the WHO FCTC in 2005. Austria has officially banned smoking in catering establishments, including bars and restaurants.
It was one of the last countries where smokers could still smoke indoors – smoking indoors has been banned in Scotland since 2006 and the rest of the UK since 2007 – and that`s good news for non-smokers who have long been clamouring for clean air. However, Austria`s new law, which came into force on November 1, has thrown many smokers into turmoil. In 1964, the United States issued a landmark report by the Surgeon General warning of the serious dangers of smoking. “Nothing like this happened in Austria until 1974,” says Michael Kunze, professor emeritus of public health and long-time tobacco researcher at the Medical University of Vienna. “So we started 10 years later than in the United States.” The FPÖ – once led by an avid smoker – had prevented an earlier attempt to ban smoking in pubs and restaurants when it joined the government in December 2017. The Austrian government will finally ban smoking in bars, cafes and restaurants on November 1 – a move that has been met with protests, closures of pubs and nightclubs and lawsuits. According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, Austria has more than twice as many daily smokers as the United States (24.3% compared to 10.5% of the population over 15). It has one of the highest rates of teenage smokers in Europe. Adult women are not. 1 among OECD countries in terms of cigarette preference (22% smoke daily). Fourteen thousand people die here every year from smoking-related causes.
And Austria has not changed its smoking rate since 1997, with one of only two European Union member states to have this distinction (the other being Slovakia).