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Dozens of tavern owners in the Eastern Cape have rejected the Minister of Health’s intention to push through extreme anti-smoking regulations without consulting them.

The Bay Taverners’ Association represents over 70 tavern outlets in and around Port Elizabeth.

The Department of Health has developed two sets of regulations which tavern owners believe will spell disaster for their businesses and the communities that they are situated, all of which create jobs and income for people living in one of the most impoverished areas of the country.


The first regulation will ban all indoor smoking and dictate that patrons can only smoke ten metres from a window, entrance or walkway.  The second regulation, will limit the display area for sale of all tobacco products to one square metre only.


Proposed ban on all indoor smoking

Tammy Nqam, Secretary of the Bay Taverners’ Association, says proposed public place smoking rules like this will be impossible in a township since even two metres from one door is right in front of another.  


“These regulations are completely out of touch with the realities of township life and culture. We are very disappointed that Minister Motsoaledi has not taken us and our circumstances into consideration. These new rules will directly and negatively affect us and yet he has not consulted us.”


She said that the regulations in their proposed format would make it impossible for any township in South Africa to comply and this means that they will be operating on the wrong side of the law.


“We were forced to operate illegally under apartheid, and now the party we voted for is forcing us to be illegal again.  This is unacceptable to us,” says Nqam.


The tavern owners also have a problem with the regulation which only allows smokers to remain in the outside designated smoking area for as long as it takes them to have one cigarette.


“If friend one goes out to have a cigarette and friend two joins him five minutes later then friend one is not allowed to light up a second cigarette.  The Minister expects me and thousands of tavern owners around the country to police this. 

“This is madness.  We think that rather than forcing us to comply with regulations that are completely unworkable he should turn his attention to what really matters.  Our people are dying because they don’t have access to quality healthcare; we have an HIV / Aids epidemic that is unmanageable and our hospitals and clinics are collapsing under Departmental neglect and corruption,” says Nqam.


Proposed tobacco display regulation limited to one square metre


“We understand the Minister of Health’s reason for proposing limit on the display of cigarettes is to protect young people from seeing cigarettes and wanting to start smoking.  Since all our taverns are age restricted, no one under 18 ever enters them, which makes the reason behind the law nonsense. Selling cigarettes inside our taverns is an extra source of much needed revenue for us as small business owners. The government always says small business is the future of this country, and then it comes up with rules like these which will kill our businesses.

“Between the smoking and liquor laws that Minister Motsoaledi is trying to force on township businesses, we are struggling.

“We don’t think President Zuma would agree to regulations that effectively harm township business and I’m sure Minister Motsoaledi doesn’t want to be remembered for being the Minister that crippled a sector of township society that struggled so hard to make it in the bleakest times of our history,” says Nqam.