The Tel Aviv Local Affairs Court ordered the Ashmoret pub in the city this week to pay NIS 40,000 (roughly $10,000) to the State for failing to enforce the ban on smoking at the place.
Smoking Ban
Thank you for (not) smoking / Yehudit Yahav
Has law prohibiting smoking in public places caught on in Israel? More so in restaurants, less so in bars and clubs
The plaintiff who filed the lawsuit against the bar said that in his last visit there in June he found the venue to be filled with cigarette smoke, despite no-smoking signs posted on the walls: "I asked the bartenders to do something about it and they said it wasn't their job to enforce the law."
The man further recounted that after approaching one of the bar's owners on the matter and telling her that he suffered from asthma, her response was that if that was the case then he should not visit the pub at all.
The pub's owners told the court that they had made every effort to enforce the smoking ban, including placing signs prohibiting smoking, not providing costumers with ashtrays and alerting city inspectors to the place to enforce the regulation.
However, the judge ruled in favor of the plaintiff and said that he was unconvinced by the owners' claims that they had done whatever they could to prevent the smoking.
He also noted that the high fine would hopefully deter other bar owners from allowing smoking.
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