Smoking
Contents
Your legal responsibility
In the UK, smoking is banned in public places. As an employer, you must take reasonable measures to ensure everyone is aware of the law and ensure they don't smoke on your premises.
How to reduce risks
It's recommended that you:
- Display no-smoking notices (as specified in the legislation). For Northern Ireland see Space to breathe for Northern Ireland.
Make sure that they're clearly visible to everyone inside or approaching the premises. Develop and implement a smoke-free policy.
- Remove all ashtrays from premises.
- Inform anyone smoking that they're committing an offence and ask that they stop smoking immediately or leave. If appropriate, refuse them service.
Smokers can no longer smoke in designated rooms inside your premises (although there are some specific exceptions). Smokers must smoke outdoors, away from doors, pedestrian routes and windows that can be opened. Smokers must also smoke away from areas where there may be ventilation intakes and any other places where there might be a possibility of smoke being drawn into the building or drifting into pedestrian accesses.
What is the law guide
The Desktop Lawyer law guide aims to present the law to you in a comprehensive yet jargon-free and easy-to-read format. Our law guide is constantly kept up to date with changes in business and family law by our team of in house solicitors, and includes information across all the legal jurisdictions in the UK.
Our law guide is free to use. Where we provide documents related to this area of law, or where they may help you with any legal issue in this area, they will be listed to the right of this message.