Cafe fined $600 for allowing smoking

ANDREW GORRIE

ALL PUFFED UP: Potti Wagstaff, left, and Roger Young say smoking laws are like living in a police state. Their cafe was fined $600 because its smoking area did not comply with the law.

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The owners of Wellington coffee house Fidel's are fuming after being fined for allowing smoking on-site, labelling the move heavy handed and like a police state.

The Cuba St cafe was convicted and fined $600 in Wellington District Court yesterday after pleading guilty to one charge under the Smokefree Environments Amendment Act.

The Health Ministry prosecuted the cafe, saying it had issued repeated warnings to co-owners Potti Wagstaff and Roger Young that their smoking area at the rear of the cafe did not comply with anti-smoking laws because it was not an open area.

But Mr Young said the rules were impossible to interpret, even harder to apply, and the court action was completely over the top.

"We're living in a police state. You can't do anything any more ...

"I just think it's getting beyond a joke. This cafe has been here for 12 years. You can't just change things overnight."

Acting on a complaint last year, smokefree enforcement officers from Regional Public Health contacted the cafe about the breach, reminding staff of their legal obligations. Though the cafe agreed to alter the smoking area to comply, staff let people continue to smoke and failed to erect non-smoking signs or remove ashtrays.

The area has since been changed and is now within the law.

Puffing on a cigar after the hearing, Mr Wagstaff said the cafe was one of the first in New Zealand to make all internal areas non-smoking, well before the act came into force, winning accolades from the ministry.

Many Wellington cafes and bars would struggle to meet standards, but were investigated only if someone complained, he said.

Though he was not against the anti-smoking laws, Mr Young said anyone walking down Courtenay Place had to breath in secondhand smoke from smokers forced out on to pavements by the legislation. "At least with what we have, you actually have a choice."