Spain’s Canary Islands are considering bringing in a smoking ban on café and restaurant terraces, in a move aimed at reducing the risks of passive smoking and to send out a clear anti-smoking message. Sources at the Ministry of Health have said government officials are generally in favour of the plan which proposes extending the smoking ban to sports facilities, bus stops, and areas outside schools and healthcare providers.
In addition, the new Comprehensive Plan Against Smoking up for discussion at the Interterritorial Health Council would regulate the sale of vaping and e-cigarette products and introduce tax disincentives that echo the fight against tobacco elsewhere, as well as ban single use vapes (and even non-tobacco vaping products) due to environmental concerns about their non-biodegradable components. Moves to place tobacco-related products in generic “non-branded” packaging are also on the table.
The islands (Tenerife, Lanzarote and Gran Canaria), which form an autonomous Spanish community, are hoping to get the new rules adopted nationally across Spain, where some resorts and communities have already taken matters into their own hands and banned smoking on beaches.
The proposed legislation is widely seen as a positive public health step but there are questions to be answered about how funding to support and enforce the measures would be allocated to different regions. Tobacco industry representatives have also raised concerns about potential job losses in the region.
According to academics from Las Palmas University, the islands are already facing a number of existential problems. These include poor sewage infrastructure, road chaos and chronic housing shortages. How high a priority the tobacco and vaping related laws should be is therefore bound to cause debate. Authorities are requesting impact evidence to support the move from the experience of countries such as the UK and Australia where tobacco products have been sold in unbranded packaging for a number of years.
The Canary Islands are a popular year-round getaway for northern European sunseekers. They welcomed 5.7 million visitors from the UK alone in 2023. Many such arrivals are known to value duty-free purchases and how cheap tobacco products are on the islands. However, what tourists to Spain want and how they wish to behave has for some time been weighed against the needs and wishes of local communities fed up with anti-social behaviour and overcrowding.
