Smoking Ban in England - Exemptions From The Law

Exemptions From The Law

While the ban affects almost all indoor workplaces, some exemptions were provided:

• bus shelters (provided they are less than 50% covered, some councils however assume no exemptions apply),
• phone boxes (but box types K2 to K8 are included, because they are completely sealed)
• hotel rooms (if they are designated as smoking rooms)
• nursing homes
• prisons
• offshore oil rigs (only in designated rooms)
• psychiatric wards (until 1 July 2008)
• stages/television sets (if needed for the performance, except in rehearsals)
• specialist tobacconists in relation to sampling cigars and/or pipe tobacco.

An exemption was also theoretically possible within the Palace of Westminster, as for other Royal Palaces, although members of the House of Commons and the House of Lords agreed to observe the spirit of the ban and restrict any smoking within the grounds of Parliament to four designated outside areas.

Smoking is permitted in a private residence, although not in areas used as a shared work-space. In flats with communal entrances or shared corridors, these must be smoke-free.

Although prisons and hotel rooms are provisionally exempt, university halls of residence presented some dilemmas in practice as regards defining what is public and private. Several universities have imposed a blanket ban on smoking including halls of residence.