The new law puts an end to one of the last tobacco subterfuges in Spain

Some customs survive by pure inertia. In Spain, one of them consists of going out to a terrace, ordering a beer and assuming that someone, sooner or later, will light a cigarette half a meter from your table. It doesn’t matter that you are eating, that there is a baby carriage and a mother breastfeeding. It doesn’t matter if the smoke reaches you before the waiter does.

So far: the Council of Ministers has given the green light to the project of the largest anti-smoking reform since the ban on smoking in bars and restaurants in 2011. To exemplify the power and scope of this measure: in Madrid alone more than 6,300 bars, almost 64,000 tables and more than 200,000 chairs on terraces. That’s a lot of money.

The terrace will no longer be a shared ashtray. The most visible measure affects one of the great symbols of Spanish hospitality: the terraces. When the law comes into force after its parliamentary processing, smoking will not be allowed on the terraces of bars and restaurants. Nor vaping. The Government equates e-cigarettes, heated tobacco and nicotine pouches with conventional tobacco in most restrictions.

The Ministry of Health survey said, STUDIES 2025that the prevalence of daily smokers among adolescents was registering all-time lowssince counting began in 1994. However, it seems that the problem lies more in a distortion of the samples.

The danger of vaping. The Spanish Society of Family and Community Medicine (semFyc) warned, however, that the problem, rather than disappearing, has moved: 90.5% of underage smokers use both vapers and conventional cigarettes. Many young people, in fact, They do not smoke other cigarettes that are not electronicmore in line with other lifestyles and appearances cleaner and more modern. An alternative, clearly, defective.

Although the legislation protected the interior of the premises but left a huge legal vacuum in the exterior spaces, this has now ended, understanding that a risk exists and persists, especially for children, pregnant women and hospitality workers who spend full days breathing that environment. Now the inn will have to face this new reality which leaves the local smoker without margin and equates it with that of Sweden, the only country in the EU where smoking is prohibited in public spaces.

Tobacco also disappears from campus. The reform promoted by Minister Mónica García seeks to expand smoke-free spaces to marquees, music festivals, and outdoor or non-open-air events (in addition to theaters, cinemas, and any closed venue) and, for the first time, expressly prohibits smoking by minors. It is a cultural change.

And there is more: the text, which modifies Law 28/2005, also adds as cigarette-free spaces the beaches, both sea and river, sports centers and public swimming pools, the network of National Parks and the work vehicle itself, as long as you are on professional duty.

Denormalize tobacco consumption. Or so the norm says: that smoking stops being part of the daily landscape. Yeah you see smokingit is more likely that you end up smoking. Because if a teenager spends his entire life watching smoking on terraces, at concerts, at universities or in swimming pools, he ends up perceiving it as normal behavior. Reducing this presence also reduces the social attractiveness of cigarettes, according to the scientific evidence supported by the Ministry.

“The reality of smoking has changed and this reform pursues a very clear objective: moving towards a tobacco-free generation,” said the Minister of Health, Mónica García. And the data seems to support his claim.

The big news: the minors. Until now, the law prevented the sale of tobacco to minors. Now it also prohibits them from consuming it. It may seem like a semantic difference, but it has important legal consequences. The text incorporates an express prohibition on smoking, vaping or using nicotine pouches as a minor. The sanctions will fall on those legally responsible when appropriate and seek to reinforce the preventive message rather than collection.

Of course, the reform modifies the sanctioning regime and establishes fines from 200 euros for these infractions. In the case of minors, the financial responsibility will fall on the parents or legal guardians, as always. But the project also foresees that this economic sanction can be replaced by work for the benefit of the community, with a clear educational and preventive focus, similar to what already exists in other regulations aimed at minors.

Images | Pexels (Eyüpcan Timur, Helena Lopes)

In Xataka | Experts agree: “Regular physical exercise makes the difference in quitting smoking”

IN Xataka | It’s never too late to quit smoking: the lungs have an incredible capacity to regenerate