Individuals and owners of the rest of indoors spaces have a transitional period of one month to fully respect the ban. From September 1 they will get warnings from municipal police and from October 1 this year they face fines from 50 to 500 euros (63 to 630 U.S. dollars) for individuals and 500 to 10,000 euros (630 to 12,630 U.S. dollars) for companies. As a motivation for the strict implementation of the law the central government decided to give a 80 percent of all revenues from fines to local governments.
Restaurant and caf owners who will repeatedly not comply with the ban and allow customers to light up cigarettes, face the prospect of closure for ten days on the fourth time and permanent closing down the fifth time they will not respect the law.
Entrepreneurs at Syntagma square in central Athens in front of the Parliament building, argue that the measure is implemented in a difficult time for them, since they already estimate severe losses of revenues due to the economic crisis and they struggle to survive.
But they acknowledge that the measure is more fair than the previous idea of creating separate areas for smokers and non smokers indoors, which demanded a significant amount of funds from owners to raise glass walls to keep the two groups apart. With a ban without exceptions, competition is more fair for owners of small cafes and restaurants.
Heavy smokers such as 36-year-old waiter George Panagopoulos who repeatedly asked for 5-minute breaks from work on Wednesday to go outdoors and smoke, are not ready to accept the change.
"We will find ways to resist somehow. First they make cutbacks on our wages and allowances, then our pensions. Now they try to enforce smoking ban everywhere. What comes next? Not breathing? We should not accept it," said Panagopoulos.
Other fellow smokers though like Vangelis Prasakis, start thinking that "it might be about time to follow other European citizens' example and simply stop harming ourselves."
The new law also places restrictions on tobacco advertising and the sale of cigarettes to minors.
