Hong Kong could become an almost completely non-smoking city, with tobacco banned even in bars and nightclubs under new government proposals, a report said Saturday.
The plans are set out in a discussion paper scheduled to be tabled on Monday to the health services panel of the territory's parliament, the Legislative Council, the South China Morning Post reported.
The proposed amendments to the Smoking (Public Health) Ordinance, include a call for wide-reaching bans on smoking in offices, shops and factories.
The paper will seek to turn restaurants, bars and karaoke bars as well as school, universities and indoor workplaces into no-smoking zones, the newspaper said.
The plan is to gradually extend the ban to other public indoor entertainment establishments including even nightclubs, bathhouses and mahjong parlors.
Managers would be empowered to enforce the law, including issuing verbal warnings and calling the police if warnings were not heeded.
Eventually private homes would be virtually the only indoor place where smoking was permitted.
Jimmy Yuen, a consultant for the territory's Occupational Safety and Health Council, raised concerns the government was moving too quickly with the plans.
He pointed out restrictions on restaurants were already in place but "enforcement was not satisfactory and it is important to sort out these problems before introducing full across-the-board bans".
Legislation currently requires restaurants with more than 200 seats to designate a third of their floor space as non-smoking areas. The discussion paper wants to prohibit smoking in all restaurants, regardless of size.
Yuen also questioned the ability of managers to enforce smoking bans in offices and public places, fearing this could cause run-ins with patrons.
The government needed to carry out more "assessments and investigation before pushing through the proposal," he added.
Terry Lee, manager of the Pepperoni's Pizza restaurant, said that if the government attempted to enforce a complete smoking ban then "definitely business would suffer" as many customers liked to "order coffee and have a cigarette after their meals".
Hong Kong currently has no legislation regulating smoking in indoor workplaces.
A survey by the Census and Statistics Department recently found that 733,000 employees were subjected to passive smoking.
(China Daily 05/12/2001)
