Giorgio Sfrantzis, acting manager of the Kentro Oakleigh. Credit:Paul Jeffers The changes have left restaurant owners up in arms, with some banning serving outdoor meals at certain times of the day to allow smokers to light up. Giorgio Sfrantzis, acting manager of the Kentro Oakleigh, a popular Greek restaurant in the middle of the mall, said the laws had sparked growing tension between the traders. While some traders wanted to ban smoking altogether, so they can legally serve food outdoors all day, others were creating designated smoking areas, which is allowing smoke to drift onto diners at nearby restaurants. New legislation outlined smoking is only allowed in restaurants and pubs with enough real estate to establish four-metre buffers between smokers and diners. Others can erect 2.1-metre-high cafe blinds.

Niko Penesis (from left), Kostas Dotas and Spiros Psiroyiannis enjoy a morning smoke and coffee at Kentro in Eaton Mall. Credit:Paul Jeffers "The thing about the mall is there is no space between venues, we are literally touching each other's table legs here," Mr Sfrantzis said. "Everything I do is going to affect another bloke next to me and, to be honest, we haven't found a solution to it." He said the owners planned on spending thousands of dollars to build protective buffers in the coming months. Eaton Mall is a popular spot for smokers. Credit:Pat Scala He said that while most traders wanted to comply with the laws, some feared they would lose customers to other venues if they outlawed smoking all together in the fiercely competitive strip.

Between 9am and midday, Kentro Oakleigh no longer serves food outdoors. Instead, its alfresco dining area has been morphed into coffee friendly, but meal-free, designated smoking zone. Once the lunch rush hour hits, smokers are told to butt out. "What a lot of people don't understand is that taking a cigarette away from an elderly Greek man is like taking away everything he's got," he said. "They come down each morning... they could stay five or six hours. It's their life, having a coffee, a cigarette, having some cake, socialising with their friends... that's the way it's always been." Nikos Cakes manager Yianni Poupouzas said he'd found a way to accommodate all customers.

He has allocated a small number of outdoor tables and chairs in his restaurant to smokers. No meals will be served in the area. His restaurant is positioned at the corner of the mall, alleviating any risk of breaching the ban by affecting the neighbouring traders. "We've had an extremely positive response so far," he said. "A large portion of our clientele come to our venue for the specialty coffee, they don't come to eat, they often just want a coffee and a cigarette sitting in the outdoor area, so for us it has worked."

However, Monash City Council councillor Geoff Lake said loopholes in the state government's legislation allowed traders to contrive ways to avoid the ban and gain a competitive advantage. Cr Lake, who has likened walking through the Eaton Mall to cleaning a chimney during Britain's industrial revolution, said he'd already witnessed businesses and smokers flouting the law. He said traders were "opportunistically" designating spaces as "non- eating" during particular times of the day allowing smoking to legally continue. "It's a recipe for absolute chaos and disorder," Cr Lake said. "While some traders can exploit the loopholes to permit smoking by their customers, others are unable to do so because of their close proximity to another trader. As well as being unfair among traders, these new laws are grossly unfair to the more than 75 per cent of Monash residents who want smoking removed from Eaton Mall."

Cr Lake said the mall was among the worst areas in Melbourne for passive smoke and it remained a critical public health issue. He said council was seeking urgent legal advice on whether it could enact its own local laws to put a blanket ban on smoking in the area.