MARBELLA/Guadalmina (Agencies) The restaurant owner who defied the new anti-smoking ban at his restaurant, has put a temporary stop to his quixotic campaign. José Eugenio Arias-Camisón (photo) was serving a couple of beers and some pintxos (tapas in the North of Spain) at 9pm on Thursday last week, when the Local Police turned up with an order to close the estblishment. He refused, and argued for some time before he was advised that if he didn't he would be arrested. But that doesn't mean that he has given up. A few minutes after his Asador Guadalmina closed its doors,>Arias-Camisón announced defiantly that he would be opening a new place where he would allow smoking, but not by seting up a 'mokers' club', which would be the only legal way to do so.
Shortly before opening hours that day, he had been in Madrid meeting parliamentary members of the PP party with other restaurateurs in the same position. But when the health service people arrived, now with the National Police, to close down his establishment, he said that he had agreed to close "because of his wife and family" on the advice of his lawyer.
Fines for allowing smoking at the retaurant have reached €145,000 and he is expecting to get more thanks to his vehemence. Among other things, he has called the central government a "fascist, terrorist dictatorship", adding that "heads will roll at the Junta [de Andalucía]", referring to the Councillor for Health, María Jesús Montero
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