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The smoking ban that comes into full effect on July 1 generates some heat

‘For a smoker, when you’ve finished eating is when you really want to have a cigarette,’ says Sergio Monteiro as he pushes away his lunch plate.

It’s June 23, so Monteiro still has the option of enjoying a few puffs inside the small Chinese restaurant where we’re sitting. But come July 1, the total smoking ban will make that illegal. Although the Smoking (Public Health) Ordinance declared on January 1 prohibits smoking in public buildings and businesses, the July date marks the day every establishment that applied for a deferment of the ban – including bars, restaurants, nightclubs, bathhouses, massage parlours, and mahjong premises – must also, finally, disallow smoking inside.

As Wanchai district councilwoman Kenny Lee says, ‘It’s a worldwide trend that people should quit smoking.’ Total smoking bans resembling this one have already been implemented in many countries.

Most Hong Kong citizens would agree that smoking should be outlawed. After all, as Lee says, ‘The number of non-smokers [here] is much higher than the number of smokers,’ a claim backed by people like Beryl Fung, owner of the Veggie Palace restaurant. In a press conference held by the Council on Smoking and Health, she estimated that ‘non-smokers account for a larger proportion of our customers’.

At first glance, it does seem as though the ban will have only positive consequences – at least, for non-smokers. The new legislation won’t even have much effect on many Hong Kong and Kowloon dining and drinking establishments where smoking is already prohibited.

But despite the almost universally accepted rationale behind the ban, its implementation and enforcement raise several unsettling questions. Examining the details of the legislation reveals that the law can be easily evaded – although the reluctance of hospitality industry workers to voice their true opinions on the ban speaks to an even deeper problem.
A smoking ban passed in New York City in 2003 mandates that the owners of bars and restaurants can be fined up to US$400 if they allow people to smoke in their establishments. The UK’s 2007 smoking ban goes even further: Both restaurant owners and smokers are subject to fines if the law is broken.

Hong Kong’s smoking ban, however, neglects to penalize owners and managers – as Lisa Lau, chairman of the Council on Smoking and Health, explains, ‘The only thing the government can do is to fine the smokers if they smoke illegally.’ Those fines can reach up to HK$5,000, but Tobacco Control Office head Ronald Lam says the average fine is more like $800.

And that’s not all. According to the official legislation, ‘Section 3(3) of the Smoking (Public Health) Ordinance empowers the manager of a no-smoking area to enforce the relevant law to ensure no person shall smoke in the premises he manages.’ Not only are smokers fined, but those penalizing them will be the bar and restaurant owners themselves.
Lam explains the rationale behind this by saying, ‘For managers of the establishments, what we do is to collaborate or work with them. We’re working on a collaborative basis so the fine goes to those who will break the laws.’ The ostensible purpose of the law, then, is to encourage restaurant and bar owners to work with the government.

There’s also another reason. Lam admits that only 85 inspectors currently work for the Tobacco Control Office, although the office plans to increase this to a total of 99 by March next year. But as Lee says, ‘That’s so little, for the whole Hong Kong.’ With so few government officials to prowl the streets, the policing of eating and drinking spots necessarily falls to those running them.

An ordinance like this has obvious disadvantages, especially for bars. Shan Ip, a smoker, says that the ban will not affect which restaurants she visits because she goes only to eat. Bars, though, are a different matter: ‘When I go to bars, I want to smoke immediately,’ she says. Smoker Rebecca Ho agrees, saying, ‘I don’t prefer to smoke in restaurants. However, the atmosphere in bars makes me want to have drinks and cigarettes.’

A bar owner who wishes to remain anonymous echoes their sentiment, telling bc that every evening one of her best customers slowly makes his way through a pack of cigarettes while ordering drink after drink. How can bar owners like her be expected to obey a law that asks them to turn in their own customers, especially since it’s unlikely that they’ll ever be caught if they don’t? ‘Bottom line, these are all businesses,’ says Sergio Monteiro. ‘They have to make money. If it [the smoking ban] kills business, then they’ll find a way.’

If managers do comply with the rules of the ban and inform on their clients, it could create a discouraging atmosphere of secrecy and tension that prompts smokers just to stay home altogether. And a law that endows bar and restaurant owners with the power to demand patrons’ names, addresses, and proof of identity – only if they’re caught smoking, of course – sets a dangerous precedent for future laws that will infringe on citizens’ privacy.

Then there’s the question of which bars and restaurants will be most affected by the ban – or, rather, which will choose to be strict about regulating themselves. Oliver Schnatz, director of food and beverage for the Peninsula Hotel, expects the ban to be widely observed. ’The government has been quite efficient in implementing the smoking ban and I would not think that businesses would ignore the new legislation,’ he says. ‘I also believe that the ban will be enforced in the same way everywhere.’

But Kenny Lee, Monteiro, and Ip all disagree. ‘I think the greatest impact of this legislation will be put on the Western bars, and maybe some saunas, some discos, where most Westerners or youngsters go,’ says Lee. Monteiro takes the councilwoman’s statement even further: ‘I think there’s more of a culture of smoking and drinking for the Chinese,’ he says. ‘I guess they’d be more lenient to keep business, whereas the Westerners might not be.’ Some Chinese bars in Mong Kok have already begun to market themselves as spots that will allow illicit smoking, capitalizing on eager smokers and those who get a secret thrill from disobedience.

Ip uses slightly different reasoning. ‘I know bars in Wan Chai, which are mainly for Westerners, are located in open space,’ she says. ‘Customers can just walk out and smoke.’ Chinese bars, though, tend to be on the higher floors of buildings, so it’s more difficult for smokers to step out for a cigarette. Plus, Ip notes, ‘I think the staff in these upstairs bars smoke also.’

Western bars and restaurants may also comply with the ban more rigorously because, as off-the-record sources have indicated, the government could threaten the liquor licences of establishments that don’t penalize smoking customers – and it stands to reason that officials will target places that cater to foreigners before they move on hangouts for Chinese residents. Even though nothing in writing backs up this claim, most bar and restaurant owners bc contacted refused to speak about how they believe the ban will affect them. Their silence is evidence enough that the ban’s actual implementation may not be as simple as the legislation indicates.

Worse still, the ban exemplifies the sort of herd mentality that Monteiro believes holds too much sway in Hong Kong. ‘What I think is really funny is a long time ago in Hong Kong, people used to smoke quite freely. Everyone smoked. It was almost really cool to smoke. But now, since this government kind of propaganda campaign about smoking, people have gone against smoking, which is a good thing – but for the wrong reasons,’ he says. ‘They’ve gone against it because the government has said it’s a bad thing.’

Whatever their reasons against smoking, people have realized that the ban is creating a new problem. ‘If somebody does want to smoke,’ says Lan Kwai Fong Association chairman Dr Allan Zeman, ‘they will be able to go outside.’ But that doesn’t actually solve anything. As indoor spaces grow smoke-free, sidewalks are getting more and more cluttered with exiled nicotine fiends. This creates a nuisance for non-smokers who hate wading through foul-smelling clouds any time they step outside.

Kenny Lee reveals that the government may respond by implementing smoking houses on the street – small, telephone booth-like enclosures with ‘maybe a little chimney at the top’ where smokers will be expected to puff in isolation. Similar structures already appear on the streets in cities like Tokyo.

Smokers like Monteiro are, understandably, vehemently opposed to the idea of smoking houses. ‘It kind of doesn’t make any sense,’ he says. ‘You have a smoking ban, and then you put ashtrays outside, and then once people congregate there, then you start attacking them? That doesn’t seem right to me.’ Ip echoes Monteiro’s feelings of persecution, saying, ‘Apart from the smoking ban, the government imposes heavy tobacco taxes on us. From these moves, the government wants us to give up the habit.’

Ip isn’t being paranoid. A June 25 press event celebrating the advent of the total smoking ban unveiled new publicity materials the government will be using to encourage smokers to rid themselves of the habit forever. One public service ad shows a man smoking in a bar until the bartender tells him that it is illegal. Another man approaches, advising the smoker to quit altogether instead of just stepping outside. The commercial then explodes into a full-blown musical number, complete with rapped lyrics about how smoking leads to poor health, and a chorus of smiling bar-goers chanting, ‘You can do it [quit smoking]!’

It’s clear that the Council on Smoking and Health doesn’t just want to limit smoking – it wants to eradicate the practice. It’s hard to argue with that goal; even Monteiro admits, ‘Smoking is bad.’

But the details of the ban prompt many more questions than they answer. How can this law possibly be effective, when the government has little to no enforcement apparatus? When government enforcers are active, what will prevent some bars from being more heavily targeted than others? How can the Tobacco Control Office secretly penalize noncompliant bars and restaurants when the law only allows smokers themselves to be fined?

Only time will provide the answers. Meanwhile, many smokers might do themselves good by following Rebecca Ho’s example: ‘If I hang out with a group of friends, I will not smoke in front of them. I don’t want to affect anyone. I smoke in a private space such as toilet at home. Some smokers are not self-disciplined. I accept the ban.’