The smoking regulations in Germany, which were likely to decimate the country's 75,000 AWP machines located in pubs, has been declared unconstitutional in two key Länder, or states.
There is now a 15-month gap during which the lawmakers must revise the regulations. The German Federal Constitutional Court on July 30 decided that some provisions of the smoking regulations were unconstitutional in Baden-Württemberg and Berlin.
The landmark decision will now be automatically applied to the rest of Germany’s 17 Länder. The court had another 13 complaints under the constitutional law to consider and, following the July 30 decision, these can now be decided without hearings.
