Bar owners and entertainment operators across Kenya are pushing back against how Parliament is handling the Tobacco Control (Amendment) Bill, 2024, arguing that a law set to reshape their industry is being written without them.
Under the Pubs, Entertainment and Restaurants Association of Kenya (Perak), the sector has petitioned the National Assembly’s Departmental Committee on Health to halt the current public participation exercise and widen it beyond Nairobi.
Perak said the committee is conducting a targeted and limited exercise that excludes many businesses and Kenyans who would be affected by the proposed law, arguing that consultation confined to Nairobi and a select few cannot amount to a reasonable opportunity for the country to be heard.
The Bill, sponsored by nominated Senator Catherine Mumma, seeks to overhaul the Tobacco Control Act, 2007 — the first major review since its enactment. It proposes stricter regulation of the production, sale, advertisement and use of nicotine products, including vapes and oral nicotine pouches, closing gaps left by a law that predates the rise of electronic nicotine devices. Having passed the Senate, it now awaits National Assembly concurrence.
Why bar owners want in
The demand for wider hearings is not procedural nitpicking — it is self-interest dressed as constitutional principle, and legitimately so.
Pubs and entertainment venues are frontline retailers of tobacco and nicotine products. Any tightening of sale, display, advertising or licensing rules lands directly on their revenue lines.
Similar concerns surfaced when the Bill was before the Senate last year, with traders in retail and entertainment urging broader stakeholder consultation.That the same complaint resurfaces at the National Assembly stage suggests either that lobbying has been ineffective, or that legislators are treating public participation as a formality rather than a constitutional obligation under Article 118.
The tension
Perak’s position is double-edged. It wants more consultation, yet its members are simultaneously opposed to the substance of several provisions — warning, as reported, that the changes could raise business costs and fuel illicit trade in tobacco products. That combination — resist the process, resist the content — is a familiar industry playbook: delay first, dilute second.
What’s at stake
If the committee accedes to nationwide hearings, the Bill’s passage timeline stretches, giving industry more room to shape final language.
If it doesn’t, Perak has signalled the process could face legal challenge on public participation grounds — a route Kenyan courts have entertained before when legislative consultation was found wanting.
The real test now is whether MPs treat this as genuine oversight of a public health law, or industry lobbying wearing constitutional language.
