Smoking Ban in Hong Kong

Do you know that smoking in public areas like indoor workplaces, restaurants, bars and nightclubs is prohibited in Hong Kong since 2009?

…What? Really?

As a Hongkonger myself, I don’t seem to notice it.

That is the problem of the smoking ban in Hong Kong.

The Hong Kong Government don’t seem to put too much effort (as expected) to enforce the ban. The Tobacco Control Office (TCO) was set up to deal with people who smoke in the non-smoking area. The effect and efficiency, however, is not as great as its official statistics suggests. Usually, when you make a complain call, you would expect the office to handle the complaint as soon as possible, but no, you will be directed to the call center. Even if you successfully make your complaint, it will still take time before they take action. Will you still care (or remember) that you make a complaint about some random stranger smoking in a restaurant you were in a week ago?

Moreover, the ban / penalty itself is enforced upon the smoking individuals, not the others. So, afraid of losing customers, owners of the indoor venues probably won’t do anything to stop the smokers (except reminding them not to smoke). This renders citizens’ supervision useless and more or less encourages the smokers to ignore the ban. More importantly, if the smokers are about to get caught, they can just throw the cigarette away and shamelessly deny that they are smoking. Then the TCO won’t be able to do much…

Yeah, that pretty much sums up the ineffectiveness of the ban.

To be honest, I am not completely against smoking. You have the right to smoke, but not the right to force-feed us with second hand smoke. So if others tell you that “you are not allow to smoke here”, can’t you just bear with it for a while? Once you leave here, you are free to smoke again. Why the rush?