JEDDAH: Municipal officials are working on regulations that would compel restaurants and cafes to designate smoking sections in an effort to segregate smokers away from healthier living.
“We have formulated a number of measures regulating operations of restaurants and coffee shops and specifying certain locations for smokers in order to end smoking inside commercial shops selling tobacco and sheesha smokers,” director of the department of licenses in the Municipality Bashir Abu Najm told Arab News on Saturday.
The new regulations stipulate that the area allotted for smokers in each restaurant or coffee shop should not be less than 30 square meters.
“The restaurants and coffee shops have reversed the regulations. They are now giving larger spaces to smokers while areas specified for nonsmokers are getting smaller and smaller,” he said. The municipal official said the municipality is intent on correcting the situation.
He explained that restaurants and cafes in the historic downtown area would be exempt from the new regulations. “These utilities have old licenses allowing them to provide sheesha to their clients,” he said.
