Bar owners fighting the smoking ban in bars and restaurants in the Netherlands have received financial, strategic and legal support from tobacco companies, research by Dutch newspaper NRC Handelsblad reveals.
 

Ton Wurtz, treasurer of the KHO Foundation, an organisation that campaigns for small bars to be exempted from the smoking ban, has admitted to receiving "about 50,000 euros per year" from the tobacco companies. Mr Wurtz also holds biweekly strategy talks with Willem Jan Roelofs, the chairman of the Dutch tobacco trade association SSI, he said.
 

Smoking was banned in cafes, bars, hotels and restaurants in the Netherlands a year ago. Just before the ban came into effect on July 1, 2008, Mr Wurtz, who has been the spokesperson for a foundation that stands up for smokers since 1993, and other seasoned tobacco lobbyists, established the foundation to represent the interests of small cafe owners.

Court cases
The smoking ban was primarily adopted to guarantee the right of employees to work in a smoke-free environment. But critics say small bars, with no staff except the owners, should be exempt from the ban. Several court cases are underway against bars that defied the ban.
 

The law firm representing the small bar owners has been negotiating with the tobacco industry about the possibility of it bankrolling future lawsuits challenging the smoking ban. Tobacco companies can count on even less sympathy than smokers, so they often pay others to do their lobbying for them, said professor of political science Rinus van Schendelen.
 

"We are talking to several parties about financing legal proceedings, SSI amongst them," Marco Gerritsen of the Van Diepen Van der Kroef law firm confirmed. "They haven't promised anything yet."

Sales decline
SSI is a collaboration between British American Tobacco (Pall Mall), Imperial Tobacco (Gauloises) and Japan Tobacco International (Camel); Philip Morris (Marlboro) left the group in 2005. Tobacco companies fear a decline of 5 percent in sales because of the smoking ban in bars and restaurants. Roelofs: "That is a substantial loss in an already contracting market." He denied that SSI has any intention to finance future court cases.
 

Next Friday is the court date for the appeals case against one bar in Groningen, De Kachel. That bar was fined 1200 euros for violating the ban in February. In a similar case against a bar in Breda, the appeals court in May ruled in favour of the owners, saying the national ban lacks the legal basis to impose it on small establishments without hired staff.
 

Van Diepen Van der Kroef represents both bars. The legal fees are being paid with contributions by the members of Mr Wurz's KHO Foundation. Bars and cafés each pay an annual fee of 250 euros. The foundation has so far received 250,000 in fees, but with legal expenses estimated at 350,000 euros, he said he is already 100,000 short.