Air pollution, smoking areas : advocating for a balanced transition
Since 2022, Brussels By Night has been deeply engaged in debates surrounding air-quality regulations and smoking areas in nightlife venues. While sharing public-health objectives, BBN has consistently warned against a regulatory approach that disproportionately targets clubs and nightlife spaces with increasingly strict and costly standards. Measures that are not systematically applied to other indoor environments such as offices, schools, or administrative buildings. This tension crystallised in 2025 with the decision to move forward with the closure of terraces and dedicated smoking rooms in hospitality and nightlife venues. Although the sector succeeded in delaying the timeline by one year through coordinated advocacy with the Horeca Federation, the outcome highlighted the limits of institutional dialogue, and reinforced the need for continued mobilisation.
Our Contribution
Building a common front with the hospitality sector
BBN worked closely with Horeca federations and venue operators to develop a shared argumentation framework and technical analysis. Together, the organisations documented the heavy investments already made by clubs to comply with earlier regulations: specially ventilated smoking rooms, acoustic insulation, crowd-flow redesign, and safety staffing, all created precisely to avoid nuisance and uncontrolled smoking in public space. Closing adapted, regulated spaces that non-smokers do not use risks shifting the problem into the street - creating safety issues, congestion, neighbourhood tension, and financial losses for operators.
In Brussels alone, the debate concerned around 15 dedicated smoking rooms in nightlife venues.
Questioning regulatory coherence
BBN repeatedly raised a simple but central question in negotiations: why impose ever-stricter rules on nightlife establishments, while comparable indoor environments remain subject to less stringent requirements? On terraces, BBN also challenged the selective nature of the proposed restrictions. If the goal is genuinely to limit youth exposure to smoking, the organisation argued, why target licensed venues only rather than developing broader public-space strategies, designated zones, or citywide prevention policies?
Defending Brussels’ international competitiveness
BBN has also highlighted the broader cultural and economic stakes .Nightlife is increasingly mobile, and audiences compare experiences across borders. In cities such as Berlin, where smoking policies remain more permissive in nightlife contexts, Brussels risks losing part of its attractiveness, intensifying pressure on a sector already operating with narrow margins.