Source: Agence France Presse (AFP) (fr)
Date: 2010-06-30
Author: Nicolas Delaunay

Nearly half of the Netherlands\' 5,630 bars openly defy a smoking
ban that is two years old on Thursday, saying they risk financial
ruin if they show puffing clients the door.

"If I prevent people smoking in my bar, it would mean bankruptcy
for sure," Gerhard Sannes, owner of De Kachel (The Stove) bar in
Groningen in the north east of the country told AFP.

"I tried it in the beginning, but my sales fell by 75 percent" in
a two-month period, he said.

Fined 1,200 euros (1,461 dollars) in February last year for
thwarting the ban introduced on July 1, 2008, Sannes said he
would remain defiant.

According to recent figures from the Food and Consumer Product
Safety Authority (VWA), a government body, some 41 percent of
Dutch bars and discos transgress the law.