Cyprus club raid targets smokers
Acting under a new law banning smoking in public places, Cypriot police on Saturday raided a Limassol nightclub, handing out fines to patrons and personnel holding lighted cigarettes. According to a report in yesterday’s Cyprus Sunday Mail, three officers entered the «Rosie O’Grady’s» nightclub in the seaside city early on Saturday and started giving out 20-pound (34.8 euro) fines.to smokers – mostly foreign tourists. They also fined the nightclub owner, Stavros Christoforou, for allowing smoking. «I couldn’t believe it,» Christoforou told the Sunday Mail. «Who wants to go on holiday, only to find themselves fined for smoking in a nightclub that is supposed to be smoker-friendly? It’s ridiculous.» Two weeks ago, the government warned that the ban on smoking from all public buildings would include restaurants, cafes, bars and nightclubs. But the chairman of the Parliamentary health committee, Antonis Karas, noted that nightclubs which wanted to be classed as smoking establishments probably could be.
