Association wants designated smoking zones
KUCHING: The Kuching Coffee Shop and Restaurant Owners Association wants smoking zones to be set up when the smoking ban at all eateries comes into effect in Sarawak.
Chairman of the association, Teo Giat Liew, said it will be good to have designated areas for smokers if the authorities do not want to see cigarette butts everywhere.
“There is no telling whether smokers will dispose of their cigarette butts properly when they are prohibited from smoking within certain distance from the eateries. For all you know, we may be seeing cigarette butts everywhere unless the authorities and eateries can provide dustbins in many places,” he said during a telephone interview here yesterday.
Teo cited Japan as an example, where the Japanese government had done a good job in drawing up smoking zones. He believed that it would be easier to regulate if the authorities could work on allocating designated areas for smoking.
Once the policy takes effect, he said coffee shop and restaurant operators would not play the role of enforcement officers. He added that they might not even advise smokers not to light up in their eateries if they happened to come across any.
“What if the person we advise reacts aggressively? Who can we approach for help should anything happen to us?”
As such, Te os aid the authorities, chief ly the state Health Department, would have to dispatch their enforcement officers to the ground to monitor.
On Jan 2, Shah Alam district police chief Baharudin Mat Taib was quoted by Bernama as saying that a nasi kandar restaurant worker in Shah Alam was slapped when the worker told a diner not to smoke in the premises. This unfortunate incident happened on the fi rst day that the smoking ban was enforced.
Baharudin said the case was being investigated under Section 323 of the Penal Code for causing physical harm.
In October last year, the Health Ministry announced to implement the smoking ban from Jan 1 this year. Those caught smoking in prohibited areas will be fi ned up to RM10,000 or be jailed two years while eateries found not enforcing the ban will face a maximum fi ne of RM2,500.
However, the ministry has given a six-month grace period to focus on educating smokers on the new regulation rather than punish them. To date, Sarawak and Sabah are the only states in Malaysia deferring the implementation of the smoking ban as their governments exert their local government ordinances.
In Sarawak, the State Cabinet will convene on Jan 24 to decide on the mechanism to enforce the policy.