Media Release

26 January 2017

Bridget Rowse – Smokefree Advisor

Salt Café starts the New Year Smokefree

At this time of year, the best place to eat is outdoors and Salt Café in Whangarei is offering just that – Smokefree Outdoor Dining, a great way to start the New Year.

“We have never encouraged smoking and don’t provide ashtrays so our customers have a better dining experience, but when people smoke outside it comes wafting back into the café and everyone can smell it,” says Nicole Grant, Salt Café owner.

“People would use empty cups and saucers as ashtrays, it was disgusting so we wouldn’t even deal with cleaning them, and we just threw them away,” continued Braydan Grant.

Owners Nicole and Braydan Grant were acknowledged by the Cancer Society and the Northland DHB with the presentation of a Smokefree Cafe Award on 10th January 2017.

“A customer asked for an ashtray this morning, we told them that we didn’t have ashtrays and we were going to be totally smokefree outdoors from this afternoon and they were fine with it,” Nicole said.

There are currently 17 cafes in Northland that have made their outdoor dining areas totally smokefree with many more considering it.

Evidence shows that a smoking ban does not have a negative impact on businesses; often they have a positive effect. Making your outdoor area smokefree is easy; spaces like this do work and don't require policing.

The majority of the population don’t smoke and people want to eat outside in a family friendly environment “without a side of smoke.”

Cancer Society and Northland DHB regard smokefree outdoor areas as a worthwhile step towards the health and wellbeing in our communities and hope that many more premises with outdoor areas will follow suit. Reducing the visibility of smoking and creating more smokefree environments moves us closer towards achieving the government’s national Smokefree 2025 goal.

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