By Li Xing (China Daily)
Updated: 2008-05-08 07:16

As an ardent supporter of the smoking ban in public places, I was a little disappointed when the municipal government announced last week that restaurants, Internet cafes, parks, and waiting halls at airports, railway stations and coach stations are only required to set up smoking areas under its amended regulation to expand smoke-free public places.

But my husband, a light smoker, says it is already another big stride forward. Beijing has gone a long way from banning smoking in a lot of public places, he says.

There was a time when smokers did not have a bad conscience about smoking in front of non-smokers, including children. I remember my classmates and I were ordered to sit in a small office one day during the "cultural revolution" (1966-76). We were there to listen to an elderly factory chief talking for three hours, and that man lit up 11 cigarettes and drank tea in between.

When his crap ended, I felt smoke filling me from head to toe.

My husband is right in stating that we hardly see one smoke inside a department store or supermarket or a shopping mall nowadays. I used to stop people from smoking in such public places as buses, cinemas or meeting halls, but there is no need for me to do it any longer, simply because almost no one smokes in those places any more.

Most of the people observe the bans in no-smoking areas.

Despite the progress, my husband also argues that it is too impractical to force restaurants into a total smoking ban.

"How long has it taken for the restaurants and bars in developed countries to ban smoking?" he asks.

This is a good question. In the 1990s, he traveled to the United States a few times and worked in Canada for more than three years. Restaurants were among the few places where people still smoked.

Two years ago, he went to the US on a business trip. Even today, he can still feel the shock when he tells about dining in the open at a restaurant in Boston. "I took out a cigarette and asked if I can light up, and my American colleague told me I should not smoke there because there is a total ban on smoking in public places, including this open quarters within the restaurant," he recalls.

The problem, as those with other laws and regulations, is enforcement.

Hospitals, kindergartens, schools and other indoor educational, entertainment and sports venues were made smoke-free years ago.

But how free these places are from smoking is anybody's guess. Last year, I personally saw an in-patient sitting next to me outside an operation theater in a hospital lighting up a cigarette.

When we protested, he stood up and waddled away, continuing to smoke.

Last year, the municipal government issued a decree banning smoking in taxis and encouraging customers to stop riding in taxis if the driver smokes, or even to report the driver.

But how many customers do that, I wonder. Now and then, I can smell the cigarette smoke when I ride in a taxi, but I do not have the heart to cause trouble that might cost the taxi driver his job.

I believe more stringent efforts should focus on venues closest to the Games as we are promising a smoke-free Olympics.

Especially, work should be done to train the volunteers and other staff workers in refraining from smoking in the Olympics venues.

After all, during a test event in February, a friend of mine was aghast seeing an attendant light up inside the lobby of the Water Cube.

It is my hope that that sight was only an exception, rather than the rule.

E-mail: lixing@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 05/08/2008 page8)