The Hague, Netherlands -- Hunkered down in a thick winter coat and scarf, Steven Jankipersadsing lit up a cigarette after finishing his bowl of pea soup outside a Dutch cafe.

"I won't come here in the winter, I don't want to sit outside then," he said between puffs Wednesday, sitting under a gas heater that took the edge off the autumn chill in front of the Brasserie Het Wapen.

He is not the only Dutch smoker deciding to stay home. Bars and cafes in the Netherlands are seeing revenues slump after the government introduced a smoking ban in July, shortly before the credit crisis took hold.

The double whammy is costing bars as much as 30 percent of their business, said Joris Prinssen of Royal Horeca Netherlands, a lobbying group representing 20,000 bar and restaurant owners.

Other countries, too, have been hit by the coinciding smoking bans and economic malaise.

Gerard Laloi, who heads a group that represents France's bar owners, said beer sales fell 12 percent in the first nine months of the year compared with the same period last year. France banned smoking in bars and restaurants on Jan. 1.

Laloi blames the decline on the smoking ban, as well as on the general economic downturn.

Danish bar owners also report income down some 30 percent.

Even Germany's legendary thirst for beer has been hit -- although to a lesser extent. Its statistics agency cited smoking bans along with price increases and a faltering economy as reasons for a 1.7 percent decline in beer sales for the first six months of the year -- though that still amounted to a whopping 11 billion pints.

In August, the Dutch brewer Heineken reported its sales in Western Europe fell 1.3 percent in the first half of the year compared to the same period in 2007, assigning partial blame to the smoking bans.

Some Dutch cafe owners have taken to putting the ashtrays back on tables just to survive, said Prinssen, citing reports from members.

Amid such open barroom rebellion, Health Minister Ab Klink wrote to Parliament this week to say the government would begin cracking down harder on establishments flouting the ban.