The smoking ban in cafes and bars may well apply to the country’s 8,000 or so small cafes with no staff, according to one of the country’s top legal officials, news agency ANP reports on Tuesday.

The advocate general on Tuesday published his recommendations to the high court, which is due to rule on whether the ban should apply to small bars at the end of March, ANP said.

Last year two lower courts ruled in favour of cafes in Groningen and Den Bosch, which had refused to comply with the ban.
The ban on smoking was introduced in July 2008 to protect staff from the effect of passive smoking. Bigger bars are free to set up smoking areas, as long as drinks are not served in them.
But small bars without staff argue that they should not have to comply because they have no staff to protect.
The top law official said there are grounds in the tobacco laws to ban smoking in cafes without staff, ANP reported, without going into more detail.
Since the lower court rulings, ashtrays have reappeared on the tables in hundreds of small cafes all over the country.