Bar lets patrons smoke 'inside'

The Britomart Country Club. Photo / Doug Sherring

Anti-smoking watchdogs are calling for one of Auckland's trendiest bars to be investigated for illegally providing "virtually indoor" smoking areas.

Smokers are free to light up anywhere in the Britomart Country Club, even though it has four walls and an overhead awning.

The venue is touted as "New Zealand's largest courtyard bar" and includes a lawn, putting green and petanque court. Shipping containers are used as bars and kitchens.

The clear plastic awning covers the entire area.

But the smoking patrons have prompted allegations the bar is "grossly exploiting" loopholes in the Smokefree Environments Amendment Act.

"If you're in there you are effectively in an enclosed space," said anti-smoking lobby group Ash director Ben Youdan.

He believed staff and patrons at the bar would be exposed to high levels of second-hand smoke.

The legislation was introduced in 2003 to encourage smokers to quit and reduce the number of people affected by second-hand smoke.

Youdan was also concerned major tobacco companies had agreements with fashionable beer gardens and smoker-friendly nightclubs.

Britomart Country Club director Nick McCaw confirmed his venue had an agreement with British American Tobacco but would not say what it involved.

The club sells Dunhill cigarettes exclusively. McCaw believed the venue complied with the law because there was space between the roof and the top of the walls.

Auckland Regional Public Health Service medical officer Dr Andrew Lindsay said as a rule, the amount of open space letting in fresh air had to be greater than the floor area.

The service enforces smokefree compliance in Auckland but would not reveal whether the bar was being investigated.

Enforcement officers investigated about two complaints a month and took an "educative approach" to non-compliance, Lindsay said.

McCaw, asked if he felt any social responsibility to discourage smoking, said he was aware of the "issues that affect us as a society".

"We're in the business of giving people what they want," he said.

"Our customers want cigarettes with their meal in the same way they want a glass of wine with their meal."

British American Tobacco came under fire in 2009 for suppling marquees at New Zealand Fashion Week in exchange for exclusive distribution rights.

Philip Morris had signed a similar deal with Gisborne's Rhythm and Vines festival.

Head of corporate and regulatory affairs at British American Tobacco New Zealand Susan Jones said the company encouraged venues to cater for smokers and non-smokers within the provisions of the law.

"How they do this is entirely up to them," Jones said.

Tobacco investment in smoker-friendly bars was also widespread in Melbourne and Sydney, according to Ash Australia.

"You have to grudgingly admire these people from the tobacco companies, as far as undermining people's quit attempts," spokesman Stafford Saunders said.

"The tobacco companies play on the association of drinking and smoking. We suspect it's happening all over the place."

Some state governments, including Queensland, have moved to stop smoking in any "staffed area", including beer gardens and nightclub outdoor terraces.