Until recently, cigarettes were the most fashionable thing in town; they walked on catwalks and retained their high status like the color black. But Milan, Italy’s capital in fashion, finance and money begins to bring on its strictest smoking restrictions beginning 1 January 2025.Smoking will be prohibited in all public places, and violators will be fined between $41 to $249 (€40 – €240). This includes the isolated areas, except when people are at least 10 meters from others. It is Italy’s most severe smoking ban, given that nearly a quarter of its population smokes, according to the health ministry.
Under the clean air initiative, among other moves are the prohibition for smoking since 7% in Milan and environs from smoking emissions; it also represents a step down after the line of other related restrictions. Examples include banning children from smoking inside playgrounds or at bus stop and outside stadium facilities from since 2021.Even though the new policies have done nothing to ban vapes and electronic cigarettes, it is aimed at “improving the city’s air quality” and protecting public health by hiding it from passive smoking.
On January 1, Milan police said that the law was complied with at all festivities marking New Year celebrations.The association of public businesses, Fipe Confcommercio, headlined by its president Lino Stoppani, described the ban as “symbolic,” and he did not like to practice it; he said shopkeepers were not the obligation of the business owners to control smoking or non-smoking behavior. In his words, it would then become a “public information law” rather than a solution to the problem, without effective enforcement.
Visitors coming to the Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics in 2026 will also be impacted. Smoking in all indoor public spaces has been banned in Italy since 2005. However, while Turin and Rome have passed local ordinances banning smoking in many more places, these have been only sparsely enforced.
