Source: Golbal Times

China to ban smoking in indoor public places in 2011 Source: Global Times [16:36 May 10 2010] Comments China is set to implement a ban on smoking in all indoor public places including workplaces and public transport vehicles from January 2011.

Yang Qing, Director General of the Department of Maternal and Child Health and Community Health at China’s Ministry of Health (MOH) says that the ban is being carried out according to the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control.

The MOH will ban smoking in its offices this month.

One year ago, the ministry said that all its offices and medical facilities would be smoke-free by 2011.

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Has he printed a retraction to say he was wrong – by about HK$ 18 billion only whilst meanwhile demanding an hourly minimum wage of HK$ 20 ?

Can we trust what the Liberal Party or its non elected Functional Constituency members say or vested interests tell them what to say ?

You decide.

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On a seasonally adjusted quarter-to-quarter comparison, the volume of total restaurant receipts increased 1.2%.

The post Clear the Air says: Tommy Cheung appeared first on Clear The Air News Tobacco Blog.

Source: South China Morning Post

It is always a pleasure to visit Hong Kong and I felt things would be even better thanks to the smoking ban in pubs and public open spaces. However, I see the law being flouted and it is getting worse. In November there were some incidents, in January a few more, and this month I saw people smoking in so many establishments.

The government seems to be willing to let Hong Kong return to the bad old days. What a shame it will not enforce the law.

There are now several establishments I will not go to because the smoking problem is worse than ever, so at least I’m saving money.

I hope for Hong Kong’s sake the government wakes up before it is too late and the bad old days are back forever.

John Preston, Hawksburn, Victoria, Australia

The post Letters to the Editor: Officials must crack down on smokers appeared first on Clear The Air News Tobacco Blog.

First published: March 14, 2010

Source: New York Times

The Bloomberg administration is moving closer to shutting one of the largest and busiest nightclubs in the city, as part of an aggressive new strategy to revoke the operating licenses of clubs that health officials believe promote smoking.

The nightclub, the M2 UltraLounge on West 28th Street in Manhattan, went on trial last week at a special administrative court that the city uses when it seeks to take away property. If the case against the club succeeds, it would be the first time the city had closed a business solely for flouting a ban on smoking.

City officials have also moved to take several other clubs before the court, seeking to revoke their food and beverage licenses. It has been an open secret for years among the late-night set that there is a network of so-called smoke-easies throughout the city, from little neighborhood dives to glossy, exclusive boîtes, that let patrons smoke illegally.

Health department officials say that the vast majority of businesses comply with the 2002 law forbidding smoking in clubs and bars, but that inspectors have struggled to enforce it at a handful of high-end places that seem to market themselves as smoker-friendly, some even offering loose cigarettes for sale.

Generally, health officials have looked for signs of active tobacco use as part of their inspections concerning other rules, like those for food safety, and have cited clubs for violations that often result in fines of $200 to $2,000.

But they have had difficulty gaining access to the clubs when patrons are actually smoking.

“Some of the clubs where smoking is going on tend to be very, very cool clubs, and a bunch of guys showing up in jackets tend to be very, very uncool,” said Thomas Merrill, general counsel for the health department.

So in recent months, the department has deputized a team of inspectors — many of them younger and hipper-looking than the stereotypical bureaucrat — to work into the wee hours, posing as patrons and hunting for tolerance of smoking by clubs’ employees.

Because the inspectors found many instances of patrons smoking without being asked to stop, the department petitioned the administrative court, the Office of Administrative Trials and Hearings, known as OATH, to recommend revoking the food and beverage licenses of 16 bars and clubs.

“We found places with repeated nights of smoking, with sort of flagrant violations — selling cigarettes, clearly creating an atmosphere in which smoking appeared to be tolerated or even welcomed,” said Daniel Kass, the acting deputy commissioner for environmental health. “Those places are clearly not responding to the idea that we’re going to fine them periodically for violations.”

Five of the clubs have settled with the city, typically agreeing to devise a plan for correction and to pay for any violations, health officials said.

In all but one of the cases, if inspectors find indications of continued smoking during the next year, they can immediately shut the club down and bring it to trial.

Two clubs closed for other reasons, and most of the rest, including the downtown spots Lit Lounge, the Box, Tenjune and Southside, are weighing possible settlements against a looming trial date, city officials said.

The M2 case has gone the furthest. The administrative law judge hearing the case, Alessandra F. Zorgniotti, will make a ruling that will serve as a recommendation to the health commissioner, Dr. Thomas A. Farley.

In the trial, which could end as early as Thursday, the city has introduced photos of people with cigarette packs on their tables or with burning cigarettes held aloft on the dance floor.

One inspector testified that a bouncer told her she could smoke in a back area near an exit door; another said he was able to buy a loose cigarette for $2 from a collection of items for sale in the men’s bathroom.

But lawyers for the club say the city’s case is flawed, arguing that the undercover inspectors could not know whether the staff had tried to get patrons to stop smoking. The club, which has been under new management since July, submitted reports showing that bouncers had ejected at least two patrons for smoking, and Robert Bookman, a lawyer representing M2, said it had fired the two employees who had been selling loose cigarettes in the bathroom.

“The law is being misconstrued by the health department purposely to make it sound like it’s an automatic violation for a club having a patron smoking on their premises,” Mr. Bookman said. “All the law says is that we have to make a good-faith effort to inform patrons that they were breaking the law, and not with a nod and a wink.”

He added that investigators had found only a few smokers on each of their visits to the club, which can hold thousands of people. “Not only do the numbers bear out that this is not a smoking lair,” he said, “but it shows that they are in fact doing what they’re supposed to do.”

Mr. Bookman also criticized the city for not going after the smokers themselves, saying that officials were accusing employees of doing what the inspectors do when they see smoking, “which is not doing anything.”

Health officials contend that their obligation is to ensure that the clubs they license follow the law, and that cracking down on the clubs is a more effective deterrent. “The entity is the repeat offender,” Mr. Kass said. “On any given night there might be one person, or 2 people or 10 people or even way more than that, who on their own are welcomed to smoke or allowed to smoke, but they’re not necessarily back the next night.”

Written by Diane Cardwell

The post City Tries to Shut Club It Says Flouts Smoking Ban appeared first on Clear The Air News Tobacco Blog.

Patrons of bars in Tsim Sha Tsui can ignore the smoking ban as long as no one complains to the Tobacco Control Office - a loophole some bar owners say costs them business.

Updated: February 28, 2010

Source: South China Morning Post

Popular bars on Hong Kong Island are sick of abiding by the smoking ban while competitors in other parts of the city ignore it, and are demanding the government step in.

The owners claim that because they follow the law they are losing customers – while most others ignore the ban and are escaping with their profits intact.

Smoking legislation in Hong Kong, unlike jurisdictions elsewhere in the world, punishes smokers, not bars, for breaches. Rather than bar-owners facing losing their licences for failing to stop patrons from smoking, it is the individual smoker who faces prosecution. This means hundreds of bars are allowing smoking to continue as normal.

The ban was first imposed at the start of 2007 for statutory no-smoking areas. A blanket ban on smoking in all indoor public places was introduced on July 1 last year.

“The government has seen fit to pass a smoking ban, yet do not maintain a level playing field, with only random enforcement,” J. R. Robertson, managing director of El Grande Holdings, said.

The company has a number of bars and restaurants in the city, including the East End Brewery bars in Causeway Bay and Quarry Bay, which have been badly affected by the smoking ban. The bar in Causeway Bay has been the worst hit, with a 35 per cent drop in profit.

Robertson said the legislation had to change – which he thought was unlikely – or the law must be enforced across the board. “Bars here have experienced a huge downturn in business, directly related to the loss of the smoking exemption, but other bars have benefited as they completely ignore the smoking ban. It’s the honest law-abiding people that are getting the brunt of it.”

Kevin McBarron, owner of the Canny Man in Wan Chai, said he would have kept his customers if they knew that they couldn’t go around the corner to another bar to smoke.

“It’s an ineffectual ban that’s actually penalising people who are trying to voluntarily support it,” he said. “When any government writes bad law, people can ignore it. Unfortunately for me, because I rent my place from the Wharney Guang Dong Hotel, it’s all very much by the book here. I don’t have the same flexibility as other places.”

McBarron said his business was down 40 per cent compared to the previous year and he has had to lay off two staff members.

Stanley Lam, manager of the Dickens Bar in the Excelsior Hotel, said business was down at least 20 per cent.

“It’s not fair when other bars can ignore the smoking ban, but we can’t do anything about it,” he said.

The Tobacco Control Office said it does not conduct random checks and only responds to a specific complaint. “We conduct investigations and unannounced inspections, including overnight operations, weekends, and holidays, in response to complaints. From time to time we also conduct joint operations with the police,” a Department of Health spokesman said.

The Sunday Morning Post visited bars in Causeway Bay and Tsim Sha Tsui last week and found customers and staff smoking freely. One owner of a TST bar was happy to let people smoke because he was not breaking the law.

“We do not have the authority to stop people smoking,” he said. “I tell them that if they are caught smoking they could be fined – that’s all I can do. By law we are doing nothing wrong. About 85 per cent of my customers smoke. If I didn’t allow it I would have to close.”

A Causeway Bay bar owner said it was all down to culture. “It is part of our Chinese lifestyle to smoke. Cigarettes are cheap in Hong Kong and it’s how we socialise, nothing will change this. I don’t care if people light up inside my premises because they are all good customers – there won’t be any complaints,” he said.

The government has proposed measures to tackle smoking in the city, including limiting the number of duty-free cigarettes that an arriving traveller can bring in to 19.

Some bars in central areas flout the smoking ban. In places such as Central and Wan Chai, smokers stand outside premises, but even inside these places people are lighting up because the owners are happy to turn a blind eye.

This happens in establishments above ground level. Instead of going down to the street to light up, customers are allowed to smoke in corridors or out of windows to save the hassle of going outside.

The Tobacco Control Office said that between July 1, 2009, and January 31, 2010, only seven summonses have been or will be issued for smoking in bars; in addition, 53 fixed-penalty tickets have been issued. The office has 99 tobacco control inspectors to enforce the smoking ban.

People caught smoking must pay a HK$1,500 fine within 21 days.

Written by John Carney

The post Bars ignoring smoking ban taking our business, other pubs complain appeared first on Clear The Air News Tobacco Blog.

Source: Reuters

GENEVA (Reuters) – Governments must do more to protect workers in bars, restaurants and the entertainment sector from harmful smoke, and curb tobacco advertising and sponsorship, the World Health Organization said on Friday.

Developing countries are the new frontier for tobacco companies, which often target women and girls, and smoking rates remain high among poor people in affluent countries, it said.

Tobacco kills more than 5 million people a year from cardiovascular disease, cancers, diabetes and other chronic illnesses, including about 600,000 from second-hand smoke, according to the United Nations agency.

“Most alarming of all, tobacco use is actually increasing in many developing countries. If Big Tobacco is in retreat in some parts of the world, it is on the march in others,” Dr. Margaret Chan, WHO director-general, told a meeting to review implementation of a landmark tobacco treaty five years after it came into force.

“As we all know, the tobacco industry is ruthless, devious, rich and powerful,” she said.

The Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, under review at the WHO, is the world’s first and only public health treaty and has been ratified by 168 countries including China.

It obliges governments to protect their populations from exposure to tobacco smoke and reduce demand through price and tax measures, regulating packaging and labelling of tobacco products and curbing tobacco advertising and sponsorship.

SMOKE-FREE LAWS

But WHO monitoring has revealed huge gaps in implementing the treaty.

“For example, just slightly more than 5 percent of the world’s population is protected by national smoke-free laws,” Chan said.

Indonesia, the world’s fourth-most populous nation, the United States, and tobacco-producing Zimbabwe are among those that have stayed outside the pact.

Many countries have implemented smoking bans in government buildings and health-care facilities, but have much lower rates in the entertainment and hospitality sectors, a WHO report said.

Tobacco taxes are the most effective way to reduce tobacco use, but only 21 countries have tobacco tax rates greater than 75 percent of the retail price, Chan said.

Fewer than one third of treaty members restrict advertising, promotion and sponsorship of tobacco products, the WHO says.

Tobacco companies had argued that the treaty threatened the livelihoods of tobacco farmers, advertising revenues, and the survival of restaurants, bars and sporting events, Chan said.

The main threat to fully implementing the treaty remains interference by the tobacco industry, activist groups including Corporate Accountability International said in a statement.

“Big Tobacco promotes its addictive and deadly product to kids with images like Philip Morris’s Marlboro Man, by sponsoring rock concerts and sporting events, and by putting tobacco brand names and logos on everything from T-shirts to patio umbrellas,” they said.

Philip Morris International, which sells Marlboro cigarettes and is the world’s largest non-state-owned tobacco firm, declined to comment on Chan’s comments, but said it supported regulation and many of the treaty provisions.

“We really hope the process focuses on implementing effective regulations that work, such as measures to reduce youth smoking and illicit trade in tobacco products, to reduce harm caused by smoking,” spokesman Ben Russell told Reuters.

A British American Tobacco spokesman voiced dismay at the WHO’s unwillingness to talk to the industry.

“The WHO thinks its aims such as encouraging retail display bans and plain packaging will make a difference. There is no evidence to show this – it just drives illicit trade,” he said.

Written by Stephanie Nebehay

(Additional reporting by David Jones in London)

(Editing by Jonathan Lynn and Elizabeth Fullerton)

The post Big Tobacco still on the march, WHO warns appeared first on Clear The Air News Tobacco Blog.

Most smokers are complying with the final phase of the smoking ban – and a new measure will soon provide a strong deterrent to those considering lighting up in prohibited places, a top law enforcement official says.

On September 1, the Fixed Penalty (Smoking Offences) Ordinance will go into effect, giving tobacco control inspectors, police and at least 1,000 government employees the power to issue fixed HK$1,500 tickets to those who puff away in smoke-free spots.

“A fixed-penalty ticket is quite, quite costly… We’re talking HK$1,500. It’s an expensive ticket,” said Chief Inspector Roger L.S. Mui, who has been working with the Tobacco Control Office since December. “People will think before they smoke in a non-smoking area.”

At present, 85 tobacco control inspectors issue summonses to law-breakers in smoke-free venues. Each summons carried a possible penalty of up to HK$5,000, but the actual fine imposed by the courts had averaged “around HK$500 to HK$1,000″, Chief Inspector Mui said.

Under the new ordinance, the summons scheme will be dropped and hundreds of “designated officers” from the departments of food and environmental hygiene, leisure and cultural services, and housing will be empowered to issue fixed-penalty tickets “in public venues under their management”, a Department of Health spokesman said.

Tobacco control inspectors have issued more than 14,000 summonses since January last year, when smoking became illegal in restaurants, workplaces and indoor public areas.

Bars, nightclubs, mahjong parlours, karaokes, massage venues and bathhouses lost their exemptions on July 1 – and, overall, the final phase of the ban was “working well”, Chief Inspector Mui said. People were following the law and venue operators were being “very co-operative”.

Health Department figures show 310 complaints were made about smoking in venues covered by the final phase and 45 summonses were issued by tobacco control investigators up to last Monday.

Chief Inspector Mui said publicity and education about the switch to fixed-penalty tickets, along with the wider net of enforcement, would further deter smokers. In the meantime, he said, ticket issuers had been trained and were ready to enforce the new ordinance. They had received instruction from Tobacco Control Office staff and police, who have been seconded to the office to train inspectors since 2005.

The post Enforcers pleased with smoke ban compliance appeared first on Clear The Air News Tobacco Blog.

播出日期 2009.08.23(日)

娛樂場所禁煙經已實施，現時只餘下街頭與家裡為合法吸煙場所。但娛樂場所禁煙的實施也困難重重，因為部分娛樂場所負責人表明不會要求客人禁煙 – 而新例亦只懲處違例吸煙者，不包括場所負責人。

今年9月禁煙條例實施定額罰款，繳交罰款期以21日為限。有批評指出，禁煙措施與定額罰款，難以向訪港旅客推行。

The ban on smoking in places of entertainment like bars, clubs and mahjong parlours is meant to have pushed cigarette smoking on to the streets of Hong Kong. Or, into homes.

Enforcing that ban though will be a challenge. Some entertainmnet venue operators have vowed to allow their customers to smoke, in defiance of the ban. And the law permits that – only the smoker is punished.

Anyone hit with a fixed penalty fine for smoking, to be implemented in September, will have 21 days to pay it. Critics ask if that’s the case, how can Hong Kong enforce a smoking ban on visitors?

___________________________________

Click the following link to see the programme:

http://mytv.tvb.com/news/pearlreport/8765#page-1

The post TVB Pearl 1855 hrs tonight: 2009.08.23 – Discussing the Smoking Ban appeared first on Clear The Air News Tobacco Blog.

Apparently, the enforcement of the ban is too lax as we can still see smokers lighting up in indoor areas. Some smokers have moved to upstairs bars where they can enjoy their cigarettes without worrying about being caught.

Worse still, the owners of some bars actually provide ashtrays to their patrons. Although there are some owners who will try and persuade customers to put out their cigarettes, they are often ignored.

A ban that cannot be enforced is equal to having no law at all.

Those flouting the law will continue to light up and non-smokers will still be exposed to lethal second-hand smoke.

I would like to see Tobacco Control Officers increase the frequency of their patrols in areas such as SoHo and Lan Kwai Fong. I also think raids should be carried out in those upstairs pubs where smokers ignore the law.

I appreciate that pub owners face a dilemma, but they should play a more active role. For example, they should remove all ashtrays and urge customers who wish to smoke to go outside.

Non-smokers also have an important role to play. They can report venues where smokers are defying the ban to the respective government department.

I urge smokers to abide by the ban and show some consideration for non-smokers. Also, they must appreciate that they are breaking the law and if they are caught they will be fined. All they have to do to avoid that is go outside.

Mike Lam, Kwun Tong

The post Is enough being done to police the smoking ban? appeared first on Clear The Air News Tobacco Blog.

More than 30 bars are on the verge of closing as a result of the ban on smoking in entertainment venues, according to the Hong Kong Bar and Club Association. Massage and mahjong parlours have also been hit hard, the industry says.

Business at bars and pubs had dropped 20 per cent to 40 per cent since the smoking ban came into force, the association said.

Business at massage parlours had halved, according to associations representing the sector. Most mahjong parlour operators interviewed said their business was down by about a third.

Some 30 or 40 bars, out of a total of 800 in the city, could close in the near future, Hong Kong Bar and Club Association vice-chairman Chin Chun-wing said. Up to 10 bar owners had sold their businesses recently.

While some smokers said they now preferred going to upstairs pubs – some of which are turning a blind eye to the ban – Mr Chin said others had simply stopped going to bars.

Charlie Chair Sai-sui, a 25-year veteran of the industry and operator of the Schooner Pub & Karaoke in Tsim Sha Tsui, said he was making a loss of about HK$30,000 a month in an industry that was experiencing a “bloodbath”.

At Delaney’s Irish pub in Tsim Sha Tsui, general manager Colin Williams said it was too early to judge the smoking ban’s effect, as “July is notoriously bad anyway”. He estimated receipts had dropped 5 per cent because daytime customers were no longer stopping by for a cup of coffee and a cigarette.

Other patrons, however, were now bringing their children to the pub and that was helping offset losses. Also, evening customers, mostly overseas visitors, were “used to these [smoking] bans already”, he said.

Chow Chun-yu, chief executive of the Hong Kong Licensed Massage Association, said customers would rather go to mainland parlours because they could smoke there.

A supervisor at the Tai Sam Yuen mahjong parlour in Sham Shui Po said the smoking ban had been more damaging to the business than the global economic crisis. It had caused business to fall by a fifth and the parlour could close at any time.

And a general manager at mahjong parlour operator KC City said business at her eight parlours was down 40 per cent compared to July last year. Four-fifths of customers were smokers, she said.

But James Middleton, chairman of Hong Kong-based Clear The Air’s anti-tobacco committee, said smoking bans had not hurt the catering industry in other countries.

Overall, till receipts in places that had enforced smoking bans had stayed the same or, in most places, risen by 5 per cent to 12 per cent, he said. Hong Kong had seen “the biggest up” in business, even with a partial ban, of any city, he said.

“Restaurant turnover [in Hong Kong] has increased 29 per cent since before the ban,” Mr Middleton said. “And restaurant turnover here includes bars … of 7,000 licensed premises, [only] 1,000 applied for an exemption [from the smoking ban] and were granted an exemption.”

One reason for the increase was that Hong Kong families were able to bring their young children to the smoke-free establishments, he said.

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