Samenvatting

In the near future, the Dutch government intends to change the rules relating to smoking bans in the hospitality industry again. After a complete ban, coming into force in July 2008, and introducing an exception for small bars in June 2011, the complete ban will return this year. This article describes the law regarding smoking bans in the Netherlands, and reports along researches of the relevant authority and a commercial research institute the effectiveness of the bans. From these findings it becomes clear that the hospitality industry did a good job in complying with the bans. But there is one exception: small bars. Next we explain, based on the ideas of Kagan and Skolnick and Elias the effectiveness of smoking bans.