Non-smoker snub in nicotine 'oasis'

Japan has banned smoking from most public places, including many city streets, but one company has given refuge to the dwindling ranks of tobacco addicts - by opening smokers-only cafes.

Thick cigarette smoke wafts through the Cafe Tobacco shops in the heart of Tokyo, filled with office workers and shoppers looking to take a quick puff, a habit increasingly frowned upon in a country long seen as a smokers' paradise.



"Nowadays smoking is considered an evil,'' said Tadashi Horiguchi, a board director of the coffee shop operator Towa Food Service Co, which recently opened its second smokers-only cafe in Tokyo and hopes to grow the business.

"We want to provide an oasis for smokers,'' Horiguchi said as air purifiers overhead sucked up clouds of blueish smoke from the crowded cafe in Shimbashi, a bar-lined city district known as "salaryman town.'' Outside, a red sign with a picture of a smoking cigarette drew more customers, about 600 a day according to the manager Kazuhiro Kawano.