Must be ban smoking on terraces? The new head of Health, Mónica García, said this Monday that one of her first steps as minister will be to recover the 2020 anti-smoking plan. This plan includes, among other issues, the prohibition of smoking in the car, on terraces, in the beaches and the regulation of electronic cigarettes. Twenty-four hours after this announcement, the mayor of Madrid, José Luis Martínez-Almeida, has come out against the measure. “It seems to me that, of course, from a health point of view, smoking is not the most recommended activity,” he said in a statement with questions from the press during a business day with representatives of the Valencian Community at the Casino. from Madrid.
“But from there to prohibiting what can be done outdoors, it seems crazy to me. I think it could even be proposed that smoking be prohibited in private spaces as well. Therefore, I believe that what Mónica García has to do is solve the main problem that we have in Spain, which is primary care doctors, if you want to start with useful measures and not with headlines. “It seems to me that prohibiting smoking on terraces is a toast to the sun.” Last August, the Valencian Community (PP and Vox) once again allowed smoking on terraces, which had not been done since the pandemic. On September 22, Catalonia stopped a plan that sought a ban due to pressure from restaurateurs.
Hospitality in Madrid
Throwing a beer in Madrid has been a political issue since the start of the pandemic. The hospitality industry is one of the sectors that has generated the most jobs in Spain in recent years. In the capital there are nearly 270,000 families who live thanks to this business, which contributes 4.6% of the GDP to the city. “Thanks to you we do not lose our identity,” Ayuso often tells hoteliers. To promise, the Madrid president even promised them the vaccine before anyone else. “We have looked at the possibility,” she said in February. The reality is that this decision did not depend on her, but on the Ministry of Health, but the propaganda gear of the Community conveys what all the waiters want to hear. “Ayuso has raised Madrid,” observed the waiter at the Don Jamón Museum in the Plaza Mayor, Eusebio Mejía, in a report published in EL PAÍS two years ago. “Last time I didn't vote, but now I do,” remembers this 43-year-old from Mostol.
There was not a week without the president entering a bar, uploading a photo to her networks, meeting with the sector or winking at the waiters. March 26, 2021 was the culmination. Ayuso posted a 54-second video of him on social media. The images showed an authentic traditional cholesterol advertisement: eggs, churros, potatoes, beers. Waiters and cooks stood in front of the goal: “Together we will get ahead.” “We are more alive than ever.” The video carried a slogan phrase: “Madrid is freedom.” The data is there. The impact of the hospitality industry in Madrid is enormous. If the budget of the entire region exceeds 20,000 million euros, hospitality turnover raised around 16,500 in 2019, before the pandemic.
The anti-smoking law and the PP
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On January 2, 2011—the 1st was left for New Year's Eve—he arrived accompanied by something new to Spain. A Spain without smoke in public leisure venues. The measure was approved in Congress unanimously by all groups. The PP, of course, introduced an amendment months before proposing a smoking area in all bars. It didn't go ahead. Months later, and just before Mariano Rajoy's arrival at La Moncloa, the PP candidate suggested that he was in favor of modifying it during an interview on Antena 3. However, he did not do it.
The number of deaths attributable to tobacco in Spain is close to 63,000 deaths annually, 21% of them in those under 65, according to data from the Spanish Society of Epidemiology. The PP's last electoral program, last July, only includes an anti-tobacco measure. It is a plan to combat “addictions in childhood and adolescence.” This is explained in point 170 of the program: “We will work in a network to fight technological addictions, gambling, alcohol and tobacco consumption, paying special attention to mental health, promoting healthy habits and protecting minors from pornographic or violent content.”
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