Environmental tobacco smoke in Finnish restaurants and bars before and after smoking restrictions were introduced

In order to evaluate the effectiveness of the restrictions of the Finnish Tobacco Act, concentrations of environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) have been measured before and after the amended Act entered into force. Establishments with a serving area larger than 100 m2 were selected for that study. The ventilation rate was measured twice in each site, during peak hours , the number of guests and cigarettes smoked were counted. Then the air samples were analyzed by thermodesorption, gas chromatography and mass spectrometry. None of the establishments had applied a total ban on smoking, they all maintained a small smoke-free area., but changing in ventilation systems had been carried out by some of them.
The results are presented : they show that improving ventilation is not a solution, and that physical barriers are required to separate smoking from smoke-free areas.