This guide to Smoke Free Dining is designed to highlight restaurants whose premises have been certified as Smoke Free by the Environmental Health Department of the Western Health Board.

The establishments in this guide cater for all tastes and budgets and are listed under three categories: Hotels, Restaurants and Café's. To be awarded the Smoke Free designation these premises had to provide their customers with a completely smoke free dining environment. The specific criteria are;

"An approved premises used for dining which is a nonsmoking premises or which has a separate walled room, adequately ventilated and retained solely as a non smoking area, (provided such area comprises a substantial part of the establishments total seating and not less than 50% of the total overall seating)."

Current regulations in Ireland require this minimum seating area to be retained as a non smoking section but do not require the physical separation of smoking and nonsmoking areas.

The restaurants in this guide have undertaken to maintain their premises as Smoke Free until 31 December 2000. However, many of them have made this a long term commercial decision while others have been operating a Smoke Free policy for many years.

Health Promotion initiatives such as Smoke Free Dining are part of the Western Health Board's policy of promoting healthy lifestyle choices in a positive and empowering fashion. This guide is intended to improve consumer choice, highlight those restaurants who provide Smoke Free dining facilities and encourage other venues to make 'the healthier choice the easier choice'.