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No exception on cigarettes advertisements, the same as newspaper stands

Nov 2nd, 2009
by AdminCTA.
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Display boxes of cigarettes can have the same impact as cigarettes advertisements.

Display boxes of cigarettes can have the same impact as cigarettes advertisements.

Advertisements may have great influence on our next generation, especially the cigarette advertisements. According to the statistic from the American Cancer Society, since the cigarettes advertising ban began in 2001, the proportion of Hong Kong primary school pupils who could recognize different cigarette brands dropped from 95 per cent in 1990 to 20 per cent in 2001. So we can see how powerful advertisements can be.

Although tobacco advertisements have been banned in newspapers, magazines, radio, television and public spaces in the 1990s, we can still find them in some places, for instant the newspaper stands and hawkers. In Hong Kong there are 600 newspaper stands which still allowed displaying cigarette banners and posters till 1st November. This is the last phase of the cigarette advertising ban in Hong Kong, which we cannot find them anymore form now on.

However, newspaper stands using another method to replace the advertisement. They set up display boxes showing cigarette packets, and claims that “It is not an advertisement if there are no words”.

Certainly it is not the case. They could contravene the Smoking (Public Health) Ordinance if the packets were displayed in a way that “induces or suggests people to buy tobacco”. And the most serious problem is they are destroying the efforts we put in protecting our next generations from the tobacco for years.

It is no doubt that cigarette is not good for health, for the air, even for the economic development. We understand selling tobacco is one of the income sources of the newspaper stands; however it does not mean that we should put them into exception.

If you want to read more about the harm of the tobacco, please hit the jump.

(more…)

Gradual fall in number of teens smoking – Researchers credit smoking ban, rise in tax for cut in tobacco use

Sep 29th, 2009
by AdminCTA.
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Ng Yuk-hang, SCMP

The number of teenage smokers has fallen in the past five years as the extension of the smoking ban and the rise in tobacco tax have made the habit more inconvenient and costly, university researchers said yesterday.

But 33,000 pupils – 6.9 per cent of those in Form One to Five – still smoke, the University of Hong Kong researchers estimated. The government should continue to push its anti-tobacco efforts because “they will never be enough”, they said.

In the most recent survey, the university interviewed 18,278 students last year randomly sampled from different secondary schools.

Of these, 6.9 per cent said they had smoked a cigarette in the previous 30 days, while 17.7 per cent said they had tried smoking at some time.

The proportion of current smokers was down from 9.6 per cent in 2003 and 9.5 per cent in 2006, school of public health assistant professor Dr Daniel Ho Sai-yin said. He believed the increase in tobacco tax and extension of the smoking ban had contributed. “Teenagers are especially sensitive to a tax increase. They might rather save the money for a trip with their family,” he said.

Smoking had become an “old-fashioned habit” among teenagers, and smokers were getting more and more unpopular, he said.

Among the young smokers, about half did not have an intention to quit, a slight improvement from 59 per cent in 2003. “If they do not quit now, half of them will die prematurely in middle age because of smoking,” Ho said. The government should start looking into the feasibility of banning smoking further – such as in vehicles whenever children were present.

“This is the practice in some American states,” he said. “Smoking in front of children is a form of physical abuse.”

School director Professor Lam Tai-hing said smoking controls could never be enough, citing as an example the loophole in the restaurant smoking ban that means owners are not punished for not stopping their customers from smoking.“By the time law enforcement officials arrive, the smokers are already gone,” he said.

The government should increase the tobacco tax every year to boost its deterrent effect, he said. Pictures on cigarette packets could show more clearly “the disgusting health consequence of smoking”.

The university has organised a video competition for secondary school pupils in which they can upload a one-minute anti-smoking video on YouTube, which would then be voted on.

Lam said the competition would not focus on preventing youth smoking, but rather the “denormalisation” of the habit.

“If we tell them teenagers should not smoke, we are implying that adults can,” he said. “Instead we should spread the message that smoking is no longer a trend. It does not imply independence.”

Smoking killed 6,000 people a year in the city and second-hand smoke another 1,000, he said.

Is enough being done to police the smoking ban?

Sep 1st, 2009
by AdminCTA.
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SCMP

I do not think the law is working. Sometimes, while I am having a meal in a restaurant, I see people smoking. If I ask waiters to ask that person to stop smoking, they often refuse to do so. The reason for their refusal is understandable.

Waiters do not want to displease their patrons, and asking a customer not to smoke poses a dilemma for them.

I agree with Brad Foreman (Talkback, August 27) about learning from no-smoking laws overseas.

Owners of bars and restaurants are the only people who can supervise their premises effectively. It would be easier to implement the smoking ban if compliance was a requirement to obtain a licence. The bar owners would become the enforcers.

Sze Wah-mei, Kwun Tong

Hoteliers lash out at Chinese tourists

Jul 5th, 2009
by AdminCTA.
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Lee Ying and Lin Hsiu-tzu, Taipei Times

Taiwan’s travel industry is being forced to deal with many negative consequences — from damaged hotel equipment to delayed payments — coming from the influx of Chinese tourists, hotel operators and travel agencies said.

One year ago yesterday, Taiwan allowed the first Chinese tourist groups to enter the country on direct cross-strait flights. However, one year later, Taiwan’s hotel and tourism operators have more to complain about than to praise regarding their guests from across the Strait.

Although Chinese tourists did increase occupancy at hotels and boarding houses, they have also caused a lot of trouble, hotel and boarding house operators said at a meeting with Taipei County Tourism and Travel Bureau Director Chin Huei-chu (秦慧珠) earlier this week.

One hotel operator in Taipei County said that after his hotel stopped providing ashtrays following the January ban on smoking indoors, Chinese tourists began smoking in their rooms and putting their cigarettes out on the carpet and wooden tables, or use its bathroom cups as ashtrays.

Another hotel operator said that although his hotel provides ironing boards in the rooms, Chinese tourists often iron their clothes directly on the floor, burning the carpets.

He said that he had even found a missing alarm clock in the electric water boiler in the room one time after guests from China left.

Other hotel operators said that while it was not news that guests often steal towels and slippers, they still found it quite shocking that Chinese tourists would take shoe brushes, shoe horns, hangers and even closet door knobs away.

Hotel and tourism operators said that some of the other complaints they often receive about Chinese tourists include littering, walking around wearing only underwear in public areas and spitting.

Chin said that hotel operators could ask Chinese tourists to leave a deposit when they check in. However, representatives from the Tourism Bureau and travel agencies were opposed to it, saying there was no legal basis for requiring deposits and that it may make Chinese tourists feel that they are targets of discrimination.

China, on the other hand, suggested that hotels should ask travel agencies to pay for damage inflicted by their customers.

Meanwhile, travel agencies complained in a separate meeting that their partner travel agencies in China often write checks payable only after three to six months, causing them tremendous financial pressure.

ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY LEE WEN-YI

Ban too much of a drag for bar staff

Jul 2nd, 2009
by AdminCTA.
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Ng Yuk-hang and Dan Kadison, SCMP

Smokers defy threat of HK$5,000 fine as law leaves smouldering ill will

Staff at bars, massage houses and mahjong parlours were reluctant to ask their frequent customers to butt out on the first day of full enforcement of the smoking ban yesterday.


Some customers continued to puff away despite the risk that they might be fined up to HK$5,000 when found lighting up in bars, nightclubs, pubs, mahjong parlours, massage establishments and bathhouses.

“It was deadly embarrassing. [The frequent customers] are normally friendly to us, but once we talk about the smoking ban they would make a stern face at me,” Anita To Miu-yu, executive secretary of the Hong Kong Bars and Karaoke Rights Advocacy group, said.


While outlets could no longer provide ashtrays, some came up with other methods to facilitate their customers. Hong Kong Licensed Massage Association chief executive Jimmy Chow Chun-yu said he would not stop his clients from smoking and would give them a glass of tea. “They can do whatever they want with the glass,” he said. “If we try to stop them and get injured because of this, it will be so unfair. We do not want to get into trouble.”


He said he would leave enforcement to the inspectors of the Tobacco Control Office.


In a mahjong parlour in Tsim Sha Tsui, an employee named Ms Ho said she had health problems because of prolonged exposure to second-hand smoke. “Now that the air is clearer it should be better for my health,” she said.


Meanwhile, owners and managers were uncertain whether sales had been burned by full enforcement of the smoking ban. Both Ms To and Mr Chow said the effect could only be seen after a week.


“Customers at a few tables left sharply at midnight to protest against the ban,” Ms To said.


“It is possible that they would not come back anymore.”


She added that the industry was heavily affected by swine flu and the financial meltdown. In April and May, bars were 30 to 40 per cent full, she said.

Last week, a Department of Health spokesman called on venue managers to be co-operative in the final phase of the ban.


“Venue managers are authorised to require any smoker to stop smoking in the no-smoking areas,” the spokesman said. “They can request those [who] refuse to produce proof of identity and address for follow up; or ask them to leave the no-smoking area.”


Still, only offenders caught smoking – not venue managers or landlords – can be fined.


The Tobacco Control Office received three complaints between midnight and 5pm yesterday, a spokesman said.


Two complaints were bar-related and one involved mahjong premises, he said.


The office had the resources to cope with hundreds of complaints every week and it investigated every grievance lodged through its 2961 8823 hotline, Ronald Lam Man-kin, head of the office, said last week.


From 2007 to the end of June, tobacco control inspectors handed out more than 13,000 summonses, Dr Lam said. Smoking inside bars, nightclubs, clubs, mahjong parlours, massage establishments and bathhouses became illegal in Hong Kong at midnight yesterday.


Those venues now join the city’s other smoke-free locations, which include restaurants and offices and other workplaces.

__________________________________________

Clear The Air says: The Government must realise they do not have enough Tobacco Control Officers

and follow overseas’ jurisdictions that ‘require’, not ‘authorise’ the venue managers to enforce the anti

smoking ban – if they do not they are fined. If they are caught twice they lose their venue licences.

Liquor licensees are already legally ‘required’ rather than ‘authorised’ not to serve alcohol to drunk

persons under their licence conditions and the smoking requirement could be included in their licence conditions as an addition , for example under Condition 7 of a liquor licence ; this requires the licensee

to prevent the premises from being used ‘for any illegal purpose.’ This should be changed by the

addition of 7 words to :

7. The licensee shall not permit any person to occupy or use any portion of the premises for any immoral or illegal purpose including smoking or carrying lit tobacco products.

This is the easiest and most efficient way to make rogue premises comply.

Smokers Snuff Out in Hong Kong Bars as Ban Begins

Jul 1st, 2009
by AdminCTA.
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Sanchez Wang and Nicholas Olczak, Bloomberg

Hong Kong smokers will be squeezed out of the city’s bars and clubs when a tobacco ban takes effect at midnight after the government rejected pleas for further reprieve, saying owners have had enough time to prepare.

“It’s time for the smokers to think about quitting,” said Ronald Lam, head of the Department of Health’s Tobacco Control Office. “The key message is that the government is working with the community to push for a smoke-free society.”

The ban aligns Hong Kong with much of the European Union, the U.S. and Australia, which have all acted to protect workers from tobacco smoke. While the city banned smoking in offices and at beaches, parks and shopping malls in 2007, more than 1,000 pubs, nightclubs and mahjong halls were granted temporary exemptions, which expire tomorrow.

“It’s 2 1/2 years overdue,” said James Middleton, chairman of Hong Kong anti-tobacco pressure group Clear the Air. “Health of the workers must always come before business profits.”

Under the law, smoking is barred in places that have a canopy, be it a ceiling or roof, and any space where at least half the area is enclosed. One way for bar patrons to smoke is to do so on the street outside.

Preventable Deaths

Smoking is the biggest preventable cause of death and claims 4.9 million lives a year globally, according to the World Health Organization. The habit is also the leading cause of illness and premature deaths in Hong Kong, according to a statement on the Tobacco Control Office’s Web site. An estimated 5,500 deaths a year result from smoking, the agency said.

Some bar owners had sought an extension of the exemptions because they are already smarting from slowing business. Visitor arrivals last month fell the most since the 2003 SARS epidemic, due to the global recession and concerns about swine flu, while unemployment is at a four-year high of 5.3 percent.

“There is a worry,” said Anima Lamarre-Delafoulhouse, the managing director of Makumba African Bar and Lounge in the SoHo district. “It’s a difficult time for business, but if the government doesn’t understand that, it’s really tough.”

In the U.K., where legislation was also introduced in 2007, beer consumption fell 5.5 percent last year, hurting profit at brewers including Heineken NV.

‘Smoke Less’

“It does make you smoke a lot less,” said Mike Norton, who arrived in Hong Kong from Britain in February. “In the U.K., it very quickly became completely socially unacceptable” to smoke in bars. Still, he said he had no plan to give up, but would look for bars with easy access to the street.

“The challenge is to adapt to changing circumstances,” said Neil Williams, a spokesman for the British Beer and Pub Association in London. “Certainly you do hear from people who would like to see a change, but that’s not something realistic.”

The toughest part of Hong Kong’s anti-smoking drive may be its implementation. In Austria, a new law mandated that restaurants, bars and nightclubs larger than 80 square meters had to introduce separate smoking and non-smoking areas. By May 2009, Vienna declared the law ineffective, due to poor controls. Greece is making its third attempt in a decade to rein in smokers, after smokers ignored two earlier bans.

Policing the Law

Hong Kong’s government is relying on fewer than 100 inspectors to police the law, which allows for a fine of up to HK$5,000 ($643) for smokers. From Sept. 1, offenders will also be fined HK$1,500 on the spot. There are no sanctions for owners or managers who allow customers to flout the rules.

Faced with the global trend toward prohibition, some bar owners have already made the move.

“Initially it was very hard,” said Toby Cooper, who banned smoking at his British style pub in Central two years ago. “I lost many regular customers. But I also got the ones who appreciated the smoking ban. The most difficult time has gone.”

Some tobacco outlets are even anticipating a gain from the new rules.

Benson Tse, general manager of Cigarro Club, a members-only cigar store Queen’s Road Central, said he’s planning to open another club in nearby Causeway Bay.

The law allows “tasting rooms,” so long as they have independent ventilation and no serving employees.

“We see more customers coming to our club because they can’t smoke anywhere,” he said. “We expect a 10 to 15 percent increase in product sales.”

Smokers butt out in bars, clubs, mahjong and massage joints

Jul 1st, 2009
by AdminCTA.
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Danny Mok and Dan Kadison, SCMP

Ashes to ashes. Smoking inside Hong Kong’s bars, nightclubs, clubs, mahjong parlours, massage establishments and bathhouses should now be just a hazy memory.

At midnight, it was the beginning of a new smoke-free era.

In Wan Chai, bars immediately began enforcing the law.

The air was clean inside Spicy Fingers, Mes Amis and the Bull and Bear pub. Ashtrays were pulled at Carnegie’s bar, a manager said. “If they still smoke inside, then they’ll be the one to get a fine,” he said. “All we can do is tell them [customers] not to smoke and take away the ashtrays.”

Offenders caught smoking in any venue where smoking is not allowed can be fined up to HK$5,000.

A smoking ban has been in place in most indoor and public areas since January 2007, although bars, nightclubs, bathhouses, mahjong rooms and massage parlours were granted an exemption until today.

All smokers interviewed early this morning took the ban in stride, but the day before people aired their mixed feelings.
Liz Tse turned 28 yesterday, and spent part of her birthday at Coyote Bar & Grill in Wan Chai with her younger sister and a friend. The ban “sucks”, she said. “Worst birthday gift ever. I don’t get the point. Smoking is legal, but smoking in a bar or restaurant is illegal. The concept is a little messed up.”

Almost all owners of late-night venues have said they will comply with the law, although some will not enforce the ban.
Back in Wan Chai yesterday, Oliver Wu, 50, was having a smoke and a beer at Joe Bananas. “They’re twins – cigarettes and beer,” said the toy manufacturer from Discovery Bay. “They’re like chopsticks – without one, what can we do?”

Hong Kong Tobacco Control Office head Ronald Lam Man-kin told the Post last week that more than 80 inspectors would work around the clock to investigate complaints from their hotline – 2961 8823. Only offenders caught smoking would receive summonses, he said.

Andrew Cameron, 44, gave up cigarettes six years ago. The property development company director was sitting at the bar at Carnegie’s and called smoking “a filthy habit”.

He made a toast to Hong Kong. “Here’s to a smoke-free future,” he said. “No more going home smelling like a dirty old ashtray.” He raised his beer, and drank to that.

Hong Kong workers fume over smoking ban

Jun 30th, 2009
by AdminCTA.
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By David Watkins – AFP

Chris Cheung’s Hong Kong mahjong parlour is notable for two things: the incessant clatter of playing tiles and the thick fog of cigarette smoke shrouding the stony-faced gamblers.

“People come here to play and to smoke,” said Cheung. “It’s always been the tradition to do both together.”

For everyone involved here — from the staff ferrying free drinks and cigarettes to the players themselves — the marriage between the Chinese gambling game and smoking is one that shouldn’t be broken.

Nevertheless, it is about to be.

Hong Kong’s government is set to enforce a blanket smoking ban in public places from July 1, aimed at protecting workers in the city’s bars, nightclubs, bathhouses, massage establishments and mahjong parlours from second-hand smoke.

Yet many workers regard the legislation as a death-knell amid a recession that has pushed the city’s unemployment rate up to 5.3 percent. Bars have reported a drop in business as the slowdown bites.

“With the financial crisis, swine flu and now the smoking ban, it’s a perfect storm of trouble for the entertainment sector in Hong Kong,” said Lawrence Ho, who has run a bar here for 18 years.

“People are more worried about short-term job security than long-term health, because a ban is likely to make thousands unemployed.”

The Entertainment Business Rights Concern group, a lobbying organisation, says 95 percent of the nearly 100,000 owners and workers it represents fear they will lose their jobs if the ban is enforced.

The organisation points to studies conducted in Britain that say bar and pub business declined by around 15 percent in the two years after smoking bans.

Suzanne Wu, from the Secretary, Catering and Hotels Industries Employees General Union, said workers were divided.
“It is very difficult to unify the opinion as different employees have different concern. But for long-term benefit, we (the union) support the implementation of the smoking ban,” she told AFP.

For Cheung, business at his mahjong parlour is already down 30 percent from the previous year and he says a smoking ban will compound his losses.

“If you are playing mahjong with three strangers with money at stake, you can?t ask them to wait five minutes while you go out for a smoke,” he said.

Hong Kong banned smoking in public places such as schools, beaches, restaurants and karaoke bars in 2007, but the legislation was deferred for two-and-a-half years for certain establishments.

Now that the ban is about to be enforced, some are asking for more time and have even organised demonstrations.
“The current economic situation in Hong Kong is very bad and these people think they won’t survive a smoking ban on top of it,” said legislator Paul Tse, who supports a two-year deferment.

The government points to Census and Statistics Department figures that show restaurant business is up 30 percent since the ban was enforced two years ago.

“A number of establishments have attracted guests who are non-smokers or dislike second-hand smoke after the implementation of the ban,” it said in a statement.

While cities such as New York and London have adapted to smoking bans, business owners here say Hong Kong?s high-rise living makes the issue more problematic.

Anita To owns two bars on the 20th floor of a building in the city?s nightlife district of Causeway Bay and says she fears customers won?t come back after they have dropped down to street level for a cigarette.

“A large percentage of my customers are smokers and I don?t think on July 1 they will quit smoking,” she said. “Business is already down 50 percent and I think the ban will just kill me off.”

Critics say the government?s watered-down introduction two years ago has caused the problems.

“It has brought confusion and challenges to the law, great expense and effort for the health and legal authorities, and bar workers continuing to be exposed to dangerous smoke,” said Judith Mackay, a Hong Kong-based advisor for the World Lung Foundation.

And crucially it has delayed the tough new legislation until the fear of unemployment takes priority over the health of workers.
“Some of my staff have been breathing second-hand smoke for 30 years,” said Cheung. “Right now they?d rather keep their jobs.”

HK extends smoke ban to bars, clubs, etc

Jun 30th, 2009
by AdminCTA.
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chinadaily.com.cn

HONG KONG: Smokers in Hong Kong will have to stub out their cigarettes before entering recreational venues to avoid hefty fines as an extended smoking ban comes into effect July 1.

A spokesperson of the HKSAR Health Department said late Monday that smoking will not be allowed in bars, night clubs, bathhouses, massage and mahjong premises and violators of the rule could have to pay 5,000 HK dollars in financial punishment at the most.

The spokesperson called for cooperation from the management of these venues in providing a smoke-free environment for their staff and customers, noting “they are authorized to require anyone to stop smoking in no-smoking areas and can request those refusing to produce their identity and address for follow-up action, or ask them to leave.”

Hong Kong health authorities have already implemented a smoke ban covering all indoor areas of workplaces, public places, restaurants, and karaoke lounges since 2007.

The extended ban “can further protect the public from exposure to second-hand smoke,” the spokesperson said.

According to a survey released by the government in March, more than 70 percent of those polled support the extension of the smoke ban to take effect July 1.

However, an activist group for the recreational industry argued that an overwhelming proportion of the 1,018 respondents never or seldom go to recreational venues and less than 20 percent of them are smokers, so the survey may “lack credibility.”

The group made a statement in major local newspapers published Tuesday, saying it is “totally disappointed” that the government gives no regard to appeals of the industry as the financial tsunami already hits hard on the sector, which is bound to be impacted further by the ban.

Struggling venues may turn a blind eye to smoking ban

Jun 28th, 2009
by AdminCTA.
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Danny Mok and Dan Kadison – SCMP

Come Wednesday, smoking will be banned in all indoor areas at workplaces and in public spaces – and bars, nightclubs, clubs, saunas, massage parlours and mahjong parlours will no longer be exempt.

Many such venues are ready to comply, but several establishments could be a bit hazy when it comes to the spirit of the law, the Sunday Morning Post has learned.

Several venue owners and members of an association said they feared business would plummet as a result of the ban, and they would take a fairly lenient enforcement stance.

Chin Chun-wing, vice-chairman of the Bar and Club Association, a group which represents about 200 bars in the city, said he believed members would lose 50 per cent of their business as a result of the ban, the financial downturn and swine flu.

“We have to remove ashtrays, but honestly, if we find customers smoking, we can’t do much as business has already been very bad. We can’t stop them smoking and drive them out of there. We won’t do anything. We don’t want to annoy smoking customers, especially those drunken ones, who might react very unexpectedly,” Mr Chin said.

Mr Chin did say, however, that his group members would let offenders know about the smoking ban. “Being licence-holders, we have to display smoke-ban posters and stickers as required by the government, or we will have to worry about applications for licence renewals in the future.”

Christopher Cheung Ka-ning, managing director of the Hong Kong Mahjong Company, a parlour in Wan Chai and an industry delegate, pointed out that mahjong rooms provided customers with free cigarettes.

“We will remove ashtrays but still give out free cigarettes,” he said. “We can only try to discourage them [patrons] from smoking here.

“I will definitely try to persuade them [not to smoke] and I will ask staff to do so if they find customers smoking. But if they ignore us, we can’t do anything else.”

Mak Cheong, a nightclub owner and spokesman for the Federation of Hong Kong and Kowloon Ballroom and Nightclub Merchants, said his club would not even give “verbal notices to smoking customers”.

“If we find smoking customers, we won’t execute the ban,” he said. “We will just let the TCO [Tobacco Control Office] do it. We are not game to do the job. It means driving customers away.”

Under the law only offenders, not venue managers or landlords, may be summonsed by tobacco control inspectors. However, there are owners and managers who say they will play by the rules.

Ray Ng, co-owner of Halo and Volar, said he expected to see some losses from the ban, but his nightclubs were on board.
“Unfortunately, both our venues … are underground. Instead of going out to a balcony, I’m afraid our customers will have to walk up a staircase and come back in,” he said. “That’s unfortunate. Hopefully, in the long run, it will be better. Maybe fewer people will smoke.”

A spokesman for Wan Chai bar Mes Amis said there would be full compliance there, too. “We shall be toeing the line – no smoking, guaranteed,” the spokesman said. Ashtrays would be taken off the bar, and no-smoking signs would be hung up.
Gilbert Yeung Kei-lung, co-owner of Dragon-I, said his nightclub also backed the ban. “This is a world trend and I think the reason why the Hong Kong government and a lot of countries are doing this is for the good of people,” he said.

Lee Thomas, operations director for Beijing Club, Billion Club and Club No9, said his establishments would take no nonsense when it came to smoking on the premises.

The smoking ban “hasn’t affected the UK, it hasn’t affected America, it hasn’t affected Australia, it hasn’t affected Ireland”, he said. He said his clubs would all have legal balcony spaces for smoking.

Winners and losers
WINNERS
Anti-smoking advocates They’ve come a long way, but still have miles to go. Still, a victory’s a victory. Light ’em if you got ’em. (We’re just kidding, of course.)

Establishments with outdoor seating or balconies Smokers can puff away in peace, as long as venue operators don’t have an overhang blocking over 50 per cent of their outdoor space.

Tourists Even if handed a summons, there’s no mechanism to force visitors to show up to court, critics say.
Snitches An offender who smokes in a bar and leaves can still be slapped with a summons if a witness chooses to rat them out in court.
Your health Need we say more?

LOSERS
Smokers If caught by the city’s tobacco control inspectors, offenders can face a penalty of up to HK$5,000. That will change in September when the government switches to a fixed ticketing system of HK$1,500 per fine.

Tobacco companies Less puffing means less sales.

Bars and clubs in basement spaces or on the upper floors of commercial buildings Smokers may bolt for clubs with outdoor areas or balconies.

Smokers who drive with children in the car Plenty of people want to see this banned
Dan Kadison

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