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Legislative Council

Should Smoking Rooms Be Allowed?

Dec 29th, 2008
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SCMP – Dec 29, 2008

Everyone knows smoking is bad for our health, but smokers talk about their rights and argue they should be free to smoke. However, the health of non-smokers should not be put at risk for smokers’ convenience.

One of the reasons for the ban is to reduce people’s exposure to second-hand smoke and so save lives as well as discouraging smoking.

In order to achieve these aims, smoking rooms should not be allowed and a full ban should be imposed. Smoking rooms will be connected to no-smoking areas and smoke will escape when the door is open. Therefore, non-smokers will still risk exposure to second-hand smoke. Smoking rooms would have to have good ventilation. At certain venues surely the government would have to foot the bill for these changes. Would this meet with the approval of non-smoking taxpayers? In a city like Hong Kong, I just do not think that smoking rooms are feasible.

Smokers should make the necessary changes and adapt to the ban. They should attempt to quit this deadly habit.

Lam Kwan-ling, Kowloon Bay

Should The Full Smoking Ban Be Delayed?

Dec 29th, 2008
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SCMP – Dec 29, 2008

As a non-smoker, I am getting fed up with Anthony Hedley, Judith Mackay, Annelise Connell and the Clear The Air lobby. I have worked in the bar and restaurant business for 25 years, I am not an owner and my lungs and chest are clear.

I am not saying that this is the same for everyone, as everybody’s genes are different, but this is now more like a witch-hunt against smokers.

Yes, smoking can be bad for your health, but why can there not be smoking and non-smoking bars? What has happened to people’s freedoms? Many countries are now looking at ways to help smokers have their own space to smoke in, as they should have. My mother is 80 and still smokes.

Professor Hedley says he is protecting the health of the staff. Does he not realise that most staff in bars smoke and will he find them new employment when some of these bars close down, as has happened since the smoking ban hit Britain?

Forget about statistics, I have many friends in the industry who have lost their businesses, so let’s work together and find a solution for smokers and non-smokers.

K. Stanton, Pok Fu Lam

To the anti-smoking lobby, I say: “Enough, already.”

Either campaign for an outright ban on smoking – make it illegal – or else stop this increasing harassment of an activity which gives pleasure to many. I am not a smoker, but I do enjoy the very occasional cigar and I don’t deny my guests the pleasure of an after-dinner smoke.

After years of bombardment with anti-smoking propaganda, everyone is aware of the risks of smoking. Despite this, many people still exercise their free choice to light up and engage in a perfectly legal activity. As for bars and restaurants, let people decide, not the nanny state. Non-smoking bars and restaurants will gain non-smoking customers. Smoking bars and restaurants will continue to get business from those – smokers or non-smokers – who don’t care. As for staff, they also have a choice. If smoke bothers them, they can work somewhere else.

Anti-smoking campaigners don’t seem to trust people to make up their minds. Seeing people still making a choice to smoke, they react like petulant autocrats.

Markus Shaw, Central

Start Full Smoking Ban

Dec 28th, 2008
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SCMP – Dec 28, 2008

I am against any delays to the full smoking ban, because the partial ban has not been effective.

I do not believe bar owners will suffer from the ban. Where food is served, the smoke-free environment will attract more diners and even smokers will be willing to refrain from lighting up. Therefore, business will not be adversely affected.

In an environment where people can light up, non-smokers are also exposed to passive smoking.

Therefore, it is essential that the government implement a full ban and I think that it is inevitable. Legislation will also help smokers kick the habit.

Nicole Chan, Tsuen Wan

Should The Full Ban On Smoking Be Delayed?

Dec 27th, 2008
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SCMP – Updated on Dec 27, 2008

I refer to the letter by Deepak Nagrani (Talkback, December 22).

He claims that people are smoking more because of all the restrictions imposed by the government. Judging by official statistics and from my own observations, I would have to disagree.

In fact, I know many people who are smoking less because it is not convenient for them to light up when and where they like. These smokers actually welcome the restrictions because they know that they are doing themselves less harm.

Mr Nagrani’s opinions are selfish and he has not made a single practical alternative to the restrictions put forward by the government.

He describes an office, a bar and a restaurant as more controlled environments. For whom is it more controlled? Does he think it is more restrictive for restaurant and bar staff and the public to be at the mercy of smokers?

On the other hand, while introducing tobacco controls, the government has, at the same time, openly offered support to help smokers quit.

He wonders if the smoking rooms at the airport are the government’s idea of a silent death sentence.

Well, those who choose to contribute to the “gas chamber” environment in the first place have to deal with it.

Moreover, just to put things into perspective, I would like to ask how long Mr Nagrani actually spends in the smoking rooms at the airport, even if he travels a lot. It would be considerably less than the time a non-smoker has to endure during a meal at locations where smoking is still allowed.

I would like to remind Mr Nagrani that smoking itself is a slow “death sentence” so why take along the non-smokers?

Where cigarettes are for sale, it is up to consumers to use them responsibly.

Laws are put in place to protect the “positive” beneficial interests of the public, be they the majority or minority.

H. Harania, Mid-Levels

Up In Smoke

Dec 26th, 2008
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HK-magazine.com – December 26th, 2008

In six months, the government will lay down the final piece in its smoking-ban puzzle. The staggered anti-smoking legislation—first all indoor workplaces and eateries in January 2007, all bars and nightclubs in July 2009—has caused nothing but confusion and chaos since its passing in 2006. And now comes another problem: do we change tack in light of the financial crisis? Persistent rumors have been saying that the government is going to delay the complete ban, or create other loopholes such as “smoking rooms.”

What with our shrinking economy, many bar owners have said that the complete ban would be disastrous to their business (though they declined to speak to us on record), and several of them have put forward suggestions for either delaying the remainder of the ban or providing the option of smoking rooms. The government’s response was clear: “The concerned industries have been given almost three years for making the transition. [We have] no plans to amend the concerned provisions in the ordinance,” said Li Wan-in, assistant secretary for the Food and Health Bureau. “[We have] not reached any conclusion on the feasibility of smoking rooms,” adding that they expect to complete that study in the first quarter of 2009.

Still, many bar owners insist that they will be disproportionately hurt when the complete ban comes into effect July 1, 2009. But experts believe they are just trying to take advantage of a chaotic situation. “The ban is long overdue,” says Dr. Judith Mackay, director of the Asian consultancy on tobacco control. “A full ban should’ve been introduced from the beginning to create a level playing field. The exemptions have just created confusion, and now some bar owners are taking advantage of that.”

What’s there to take advantage of? It’s hard to tell what kind of logic the bar owners are using: both local and international statistics have proven that they wouldn’t lose out financially. For one thing, a ban would mean immediate savings on fire insurance, property damage and time off for sick workers. And if the exemption has given us one thing, it’s valid receipts: restaurant revenues for the first quarter of 2008 were 30 percent higher than that of the same period in a pre-ban 2006.

Others disagree. The Legco representative for the catering industry, Tommy Cheung, feels that the numbers don’t give an accurate picture. The economy was at a high point in the beginning of 2008, and he says we should look at numbers from the dire last two quarters of this year instead. Because of that fact, he feels strongly that not only should there be an exemption, but that the full ban should be permanently delayed until the crisis is over. “Right now is not the time to do anything drastic or create any hardship for the public,” says Cheung.

Of course, many don’t feel Cheung’s thoughts are in keeping with public opinion, and that his viewpoint has been clouded by financial concerns and missing the real point: public health. When asked how he suggests restaurant and bar workers deal with the unwanted effects of secondhand smoke, he replies simply: “Workers have a choice.” Obviously not everyone agrees.

“How can anyone charged with representing the catering industry press for bar staff to work in a toxic atmosphere?” asks James Middleton, chairman of the anti-tobacco committee of Clear the Air. “Health must always come before business interests.” Facts illustrating the debilitating effects of secondhand smoke are everywhere, but even those in the industry believe the situation is out of hand. “There’s no reason anyone should be subjected to losing their lung capacity because they were working in a bar,” says Mark Joyce, manager of the Pickled Pelican bar on Wyndham Street. “They’re not the highest paid people, so why should they put up with additional health problems?”

And there’s also the law. Hong Kong’s Occupational Health Law specifically states that “every employer must…ensure the safety and health at work of all their employees.” Mackay puts things in an interesting perspective: “If a factory in Kwun Tong had chemical poison in the air, under the government’s laws, there’s a responsibility to shut it down. This is no different.”

So what other option is left for desperate pro-smoking bar owners but a smoking room? Despite the fact that these rooms seem scantly beneficial in terms of health (experiments have proven that it would take tornado-speed winds to remove the carcinogens in one of these rooms), and that they don’t make sense in the current economic crisis (since they will be extremely expensive to install), the government has agreed to conduct a feasibility study on installing the rooms, which is scheduled to be finished sometime in the first quarter of 2009. Even if that study were to suggest the provision of smoking rooms, it’s a hugely expensive option. “You practically have to strip down a building to install a fully ventilated smoking room,” says Mackay.

So expect the ban to kick in fully in 2009. But there is one more problem. Few figures show that smoking has actually declined in the city since the partial ban took effect earlier this year. In fact, the Customs and Excise Department recorded a total of 3.756 billion sticks of duty-paid cigarettes between October 2007 and September 2008, which is an increase of 9.1 percent when compared to the same time period between 2006 and 2007. Many health experts feel that this only points to one thing: follow the lead of the US and UK and raise cigarette taxes.

As part of the World Health Organization’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, Hong Kong is mandated to increase taxes on a regular basis, says Middleton. It hasn’t increased from its current 50 percent of the retail price for eight years. “In the UK, the average tax per pack is £4.33, or 77 percent of the retail price. They also instituted a complete ban in bars and restaurants, and in its first year, 400,000 people quit smoking and sales reduced remarkably.”

As for that option, a feasibility study on raising tobacco taxes has not even begun. Let’s hope the government sees sense and helps us kick the habit once and for all.

by Pavan Shamdasani.

Smoking Rooms Not Right For HK, Expert Says

Dec 22nd, 2008
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Dan Kadison, SCMP – Updated on Dec 22, 2008

A number of Asian and European countries have placed restrictions on smoking but still permit smoking rooms to operate. But University of Hong Kong public health expert Anthony Hedley said this did not mean they would work in Hong Kong.

Deanna Cheung, British American Tobacco’s head of corporate and regulatory affairs for Hong Kong and Macau, said: “Smoking rooms are used in a lot of different countries. There must be some merit in it.

“A smoking room is a way to contain the smoke, and that can create a more comfortable environment for non-smokers to continue to enjoy themselves, whereas smokers can [still] enjoy themselves.

“So that’s accommodating both the interests of the smokers and the non-smokers. To us, that’s a more practical way of doing it instead of a blanket smoking ban.”

Countries where smoking rooms are allowed under certain circumstances include Singapore, Malaysia, France, Germany and Italy. Taiwan also permits them.

“Around the globe, a small number of countries have adopted extreme measures, banning indoor smoking in all work and public places, including age-restricted venues,” BAT said. “We believe such an approach goes too far and the Hong Kong government should not follow suit. In fact, many other countries allow a certain degree of flexibility in their legislation.”

But Professor Hedley said smoking rooms would not protect smokers or stop gases and particulates escaping into outer areas.

“Yes, there are smoking rooms in other countries. That doesn’t mean they’re right,” he said.

“We’re not talking about other countries. We’re talking about Hong Kong. And I think there are many, many reasons we don’t need them here and [why] they won’t work.”

He said users would be exposed to dangerous “ambient fine particulates” even with a ventilation system. Inside the room, “it would be several hundred micrograms per cubic metre above the roadside levels in Central, which we know are extremely poisonous and damaging to health”, he said.

“The street-level pollution pales into insignificance compared with the levels that would be created in a smoking room.”

And non-smokers were at risk as smoke leaked from smoking rooms. “It’s predictable and it can be demonstrated that they [smoking rooms] actually contaminate the surrounding air,” he said.

Bar Owner’s Last-gasp Effort To Avoid The Ban

Dec 22nd, 2008
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Dan Kadison, SCMP – Updated on Dec 22, 2008

Standing in a cold, dimly lit and airy room, I did something that could be illegal by the middle of next year – lit up a cigarette in a bar.

Fresh air descended from above into the negatively pressurised enclosure while the fumes twirled out through a ceiling vent and a horizontal vent built into a wall-mounted countertop.

No smoke could be seen drifting out of the room into the main bar area, even with the double doors open.

I was in a smoking room built by a Causeway Bay bar owner and his business partner in an effort to show that such a ventilated enclosure can work.

Eric Wong, owner of 2020 By SK, and Anita To regard it as a last-ditch effort before the extension of the smoking ban to exempted bars on July 1. They have converted a VIP karaoke room at a cost of HK$300,000, with financial help from the Philip Morris tobacco company.

“If [we] don’t try it, [we] die anyway,” said Mr Wong, whose small, stylish bar has been open on the 20th floor of the Bartlock Centre on Yiu Wa Street for five years. The 100 sq ft room can hold more than 10 people and its double doors would never both be open at the same time, as they were when I took my puff.

Mr Wong, who runs nine bars and restaurants in Yiu Wa Street, said he was already feeling the financial squeeze caused by the smoking ban. He is planning to close two upper-floor restaurants in the Bartlock Centre after the Lunar New Year.

Business in both spots had dropped 70 per cent since the first stage of the ban, affecting restaurants and other premises that admit people under 18, went into effect early last year.

A smoking ban for bars would end 2020 By SK’s run, said Mr Wong and Ms To, officers of the Hong Kong Bars and Karaoke Rights Advocacy group.

“Over 85 per cent of our customers are smokers,” said Ms To.

A group of 20 people, including government and trade representatives, looked at the smoking room last month and stood outside as someone puffed away inside the enclosure.

“The overall system is very effective,” said one. “We were standing outside, with both doors open, and we could still barely smell anything from that smoking room.”

Lewis Cheng, project manager for Advance Technology Air Condition Engineering, the company that built the room, said: “We won’t let the client open both doors – just one by one. There’s a buffering area [between the double doors], and an exhaust vent too.”

Before being pumped outside, the dirty air was cleaned by an ionising device, he said.

Smoking Room Study In Final Phase

Dec 22nd, 2008
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SCMP, Dan Kadison – Updated on Dec 22, 2008

Little more than six months before the smoking ban is to be enforced in bars and other now-exempted venues, the government is entering the final phase of a study of smoking rooms that may offer bar owners a way around the curbs.

The Electrical and Mechanical Services Department has almost finished building a trial smoking room, along lines recommended by consultants this year, and tests by the Food and Health Bureau will begin next month, according to a source close to the project.

Bar owners see such rooms as a lifeline, enabling them to retain smoking customers, who according to some account for up to 85 per cent of their patronage.

At least one pub has built its own smoking room with financial help from tobacco giant Philip Morris.

Progress on the trial was outlined in a government paper, obtained by the South China Morning Post.

The Food and Health Bureau, in a September brief written for the food business taskforce of the Business Facilitation Advisory Committee, said its advisers had run computer simulations on the best way to clean the air in a smoking room.

They had decided the test room should be built with a ventilation system that brought fresh air in through the floor and took smoke out through the ceiling. A source familiar with the plan said the department had almost finished the room.

“Experiments will start next month,” the source added. “Quite a number of people should be able to smoke there … it’s a pretty big room.”

Health minister York Chow Yat-ngok announced in 2006 that government-commissioned consultants would consider the viability of smoking rooms.

The study began in August last year – months after the first stage of the smoking ban took effect.

The source said computer modelling had shown that a well-designed smoking room would allow hardly any smoke to escape and next year’s report could support them. “A smoking room can definitely be built,” the source said. “It’s not an impossible mission. It’s how you design it.”

Anti-smoking-campaign leader Anthony Hedley said that the introduction of smoking rooms “would be nothing short of a scandal”.

“To actually start creating these intensive sources of tobacco chemicals inside buildings, inside catering facilities, is madness,” said Professor Hedley, chairman of the department of community medicine at the University of Hong Kong.

Last month, the commissioned consultants joined a group of government and trade representatives for a tour of two smoking rooms: a HK$300,000 British American Tobacco ventilation showcase in Chai Wan; and a smoking room inside 2020 By SK, a Causeway Bay bar.

The bureau is expected to report its findings to the Legislative Council in the first quarter of next year.

Should The Full Ban On Smoking Be Postponed?

Dec 22nd, 2008
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SCMP – Updated on Dec 22, 2008

According to the report “Tougher laws on way for smokers, says health chief” (December 11), our health minister, York Chow Yat-ngok, says he wants to establish a smoke-free city with tougher laws for smokers.

He wants to ban smoking anywhere in Hong Kong except our own homes, as well as increase import taxes on cigarettes.

Why not then just stop the selling of cigarettes in Hong Kong? The government wants to profit from the huge revenue from taxes on cigarette imports as long as smokers kill themselves in private.

Cigarette imports are up by 9.1 per cent this year but Dr Chow says this is not because more people are smoking. How would he know if he does not smoke himself?

I think people are smoking more because of all these restrictions because now, instead of smoking in a controlled environment like their office, a bar or a restaurant, they have to make an effort to go outside so end up smoking twice as much to make up for the inconvenience of having to go out: “Oh, might as well have one more for the road before we go back in.”

There are many other air-pollutant factors in Hong Kong – such as vehicles parked with running engines or restaurant exhaust systems blowing out hot air to the streets – that I don’t see anything being done about.

Has Dr Chow walked past Wellington Street recently? Or maybe it does not bother him while sitting in his chauffeur-driven BMW.

The smoking rooms at Hong Kong airport are a violation of human rights if you ask me.

You want to sell cigarettes all over Hong Kong, but yet you want to put all smokers in a “gas chamber” environment that is probably accelerating the chances of them getting cancer.

With all the space at the airport, the smoking rooms could have been much larger, decorated better and have better ventilation. Is this the government’s idea of a silent “death sentence”?

Smoking is bad for you, but smokers also have the right to have places where they can smoke other than their homes or glass cages.

Leave that choice to us or the owners of bars and restaurants.

Next we will start seeing smoking rooms like you have at the airport all over the city, where it will be the only place you can smoke and slowly be the death of all us smokers.

Thank you, Dr Chow.

Deepak Nagrani, Pok Fu Lam

Just take a look at some of the latest developments in other countries and cities.

On October 27, Atlantic City council, in New Jersey, voted to overturn a smoking ban that took effect in the city’s 11 casinos and revert to a previous arrangement allowing smoking on up to 25 per cent of the casino floor for at least the next year. The revised measure took effect last month.

On October 3, the Swiss parliament adopted a new federal law on “protection from passive smoking”, allowing the setting up of physically separated, clearly marked and well-ventilated rooms called fumoirs for smokers at pubs, restaurants and cafes.

Singapore pubs and bars are allowed to have smoking rooms of not more than 10 per cent of the total floor area since a total smoking ban came into effect in July 2007.

Starting from next year in Taiwan, hotels, restaurants, shopping centres and other entertainment outlets will be allowed to set up smoking rooms of not more than 20 per cent of the total floor area.

In Malaysia, smoking is prohibited in air-conditioned cafes or restaurants, except in a segregated smoking area, consisting of no more than one-third of the total area, with adequate ventilation facilities.

This restriction does not extend to pubs, discos and nightclubs.

In France, cafes, restaurants, clubs and bars are allowed to build smoking rooms of not more than 20 per cent of the total floor space.

Italy is the fourth country in the world to enact a nationwide smoking ban. But independently ventilated smoking rooms are allowed.

These places all have tough tobacco-control measures. Yet they remain flexible in implementation.

To promote social harmony and avoid unnecessary confrontation, the Hong Kong government should also be more flexible and open in considering delaying the smoking ban in bars and pubs as well as other alternative measures to reconcile the preferences of smokers and non-smokers.

Anita To, Wan Chai

Should The Full Smoking Ban Be Delayed?

Dec 18th, 2008
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Updated on Dec 18, 2008

Lam Kwok-tung’s claim (Talkback, December 13) that the University of Hong Kong’s study of second-hand smoke lacks validity is classic tobacco-industry-style misinformation.

Our full report, to be published in a peer-reviewed international scientific journal, does demonstrate clear evidence for a causal relationship between workplace air quality and respiratory health (“Stick by full smoke ban, urge academics”, December 10).

Higher levels of particulates, wherever they occurred, were associated with greater reductions in lung function.

Your correspondent’s implausible explanation for this is that the most vulnerable workers, with previous respiratory problems, somehow selectively occupied jobs in the most polluted workplaces during the two years since the smoking ban legislation.

His shroud waving is baseless. For example, why does he claim that “thousands are no longer employed” given that government statistics since 2006 show the catering business has increased by 30 per cent and bars were exempted from the ban?

The only “competing interest” in this issue is the tobacco industry and a small section of the hospitality trade which says it cannot make a profit in Hong Kong without serving food and drink in filthy air.

Independent economic analyses in other jurisdictions show no negative impact of smoke-free policies, except on tobacco sales.

Despite Mr Lam’s denial, your readers can be sure that smoke-free legislation has led to dramatic improvements in the health of bar workers and the general population, measured as inflammation, respiratory symptoms, lung function or hospital admissions for heart disease. That includes the Scottish workers study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, and reports from New York, Montana, Ohio, Colorado, and two from Italy.

Mr Lam accuses us of prejudice, but our only bias is the identification of serious occupational health risks. He admits that Hong Kong’s outdoor pollution is a major problem, but wants to create workplace contamination four times this level.

This cynical trade-off does not “pale into insignificance”, and the increased risks of heart attack, stroke and cancer will be unacceptable to anyone who is properly informed.

The suggestion that our catering industry is either willing or able to advise on these hazards is ludicrous.

Anthony J. Hedley, school of public health, University of Hong Kong

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