Indoor life gets a little more difficult for Beijing’s estimated 4.2 million smokers in fewer than 10 days as the city enacts the nation’s toughest ban on indoor toking June 1.

For the remaining non-smoking millions, that likely means more enjoyable meals and visits to nightclubs that won’t result in getting a contact nicotine buzz from the secondhand smoke.

On the eve of the long-planned ban, a survey by the Beijing Municipal Commission of Health and Family Planning revealed that 4.2 million people over the age of 15 smoke in Beijing, or almost a quarter of all adults.

These smokers huff on an average of 14.6 cigarettes daily. That means nicotine fiends are consuming over 61 million cigabutts every 24 hours. That’s 5,200 kilometers of cigarettes, enough to form a continuous line from Beijing to Lhasa and back, if laid end to end.

The frontlines in the war on smoking will be in Beijing’s bars, nightclubs and restaurants. The commission’s survey indicated these are the top spots where people report being exposed to secondhand smoke. A full 90 percent of all respondents say they’ve encountered smoking in bars, while 66 percent say they’ve been exposed to it in restaurants.

A quick survey of a few of Beijing’s food and beverage hotspots reveals that some are looking forward to the ban, while others are concerned about its impact on business and the issue of selective enforcement.

"I’m actually happy with the ban because it will make it easier for me to make the change to non-smoking," said Kenn Bermel, proprietor of The Local, which currently allows indoor smoking. "I think most smokers will be cool about it."

Jeff Powell, who runs Frost in Xingfucun, allows smoking in his venue after 8pm, but will move to a complete ban after June 1. "I’m not willing to take the hit of a RMB 10,000 fine if someone gets caught," he said.

Greg Savarese, who runs Ricci Cafes in Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou, has never allowed smoking in his cafés and has good news for those in the F&B business fretting about how a ban might affect the bottom line: enforcing a no-smoking environment has never been a problem for Ricci’s business.

"If anything, [being a non-smoking venue]makes it a more comfortable environment," he said. "It makes the non-smokers stay longer for an extra cup of coffee or an extra piece of cake."

While he has one or two customers a month who might light up a cigarette, his staff is trained to immediately approach the table and politely ask them to put it out. And smokers almost always understand.

"I’ve never had a customer choose to leave because they couldn’t smoke," he added.

Comparitively speaking, Savarese says, Beijing’s already better off than Guangzhou in terms of smoking restrictions.

"Guangzhou is certainly far worse [in terms of smoking]," he said. "The rules are not as strict, nor as enforced, as they are in Beijing."

Carl Setzer of Great Leap Brewing agrees with Savarese: the no-smoking policy Great Leap has adhered to since its initial opening hasn’t hurt business at all — in fact, it has helped.

"People appreciate the diligence with which we train our staff in enforcing the policy," he said. "I’d account a lot of our success to the fact that we’ve always held to that principle."

The bands that ply Beijing’s bars and clubs circuit are also expected to benefit from the ban.

"I’m really excited about this," said Ian Burns, who sings lead for his band the Beijing Beatles. "We play up to two hours of Beatles’ stuff at any of our gigs, and to do that in a smoke-filled room is not easy."

Chris Hawke of the Hutong Yellow Weasels put it another way: "I noticed some of the bigger bands refuse to play gigs unless smoking is banned that night," he said. "One of the main reasons I’d like to become more famous is so the Hutong Yellow Weasels can do the same."

Chandler Jurinka, who runs the Slow Boat Brewery Taproom, hasn’t allowed smoking since it opened two and a half years ago, and says the policy has been a blessing for both customers and staff.

"Our Taproom is fairly small so [permitting smoking]was never up for consideration," he said. "Smokers don’t really mind, and from the beginning we had folks bringing their kids. Our non-smoking staff are also very appreciative they aren’t forced to breathe other people’s smoke during their shifts."

Tube Station Pizza will be eliminating their designated smoking areas in all branches of their restaurants come June 1.

"We won’t be putting ashtrays on the tables and will replace our Designated Smoking Area signs with No Smoking signs," said Marketing Manager Victoria Yang. "If customers insist on smoking, we will politely ask them to go outside."

While most welcomed the new restrictions, some remain concerned about selective enforcement of the ban.

Joshua Lally, who runs Sugar Shack and Lush in Wudaokou, permits smoking only in the evenings at his student-centric bars.

"I’d love to go full non-smoking, but it would put us at a competitive disadvantage if we were the only ones that complied," he said. "If [the authorities]are serious, we will follow, but if there’s little enforcement, our customers will just go elsewhere to hang out where they can smoke."

In addition to a complete indoor ban, some outdoor areas will be non-smoking after June 1 as well, such as:

– Youth activities facilities such as playgrounds;
– Sporting fields;
– Areas with cultural relics such as the Forbidden City;
– Designated waiting areas like lines for buses;
– Temporary large-scale outdoor activity areas;
– Outside maternity clinics and childrens’ hospitals.

While Beijing has attempted (and failed) to institute smoking restrictions in the past, this time the city seems a few degrees more serious. Venues face fines of up to RMB 10,000 allowing smoking, while smokers themselves will be subject to fines of up to RMB 200.

Beijing residents also have become more sensitive to the issue of air quality in recent years due to public uproar over hideously awful outdoor air quality measurements which are now regularly reported by the city government.

The city’s official anti-smoking campaign has leveraged this newfound sensitivity to air quality by pointing out that indoor smoking is far worse in terms of PM 2.5 than even the most hideous bad air day in the city.

While the city has pledged enforcement and regular checks, they are also encouraging social media users to join in a grass-roots attempt to help them stamp out indoor smoking. You can do your part if you are a user of WeChat, by adding the "No Smoking Beijing" WeChat account and reporting violations of the policy.

To add the account, use WeChat to search either "无烟北京" or the pinyin "wuyanbeijing". 

Once you’ve followed the account, you can report smoking violations by going to the third option on the menu bar at the bottom "控烟行动" (marked as 1 below) then choose "我要举报" (marked as 2) from the pop-up menu:

Once you’ve done that, you can type a message in the field, upload pictures and add the address where you spotted the violation.

This post first appeared on thebeijinger.com on May 22, 2015.

Photos: No Smoking Beijing

The scene was a common one for any parent of a young child – a friend’s birthday party. There were all the usual suspects: cake, balloons, presents, music, and lots of excited screaming children. I dropped my daughter off and vowed to return before the allotted pick-up time.

I actually made it back in time to witness the ritual of the presents being opened. The kids all sat in a circle and after each gift was opened, it was passed around so that the young guests could inspect it. That’s when I noticed a nefarious presence I had not seen in a children’s party before. There, in the middle of the action, was the father of the birthday-girl with a cigarette in his mouth.

I should point out that my North American friend was puffing away on an electronic cigarette (e-cigarette) since he had given up smoking the “bad” kind. When one of the kids asked him about his cigarette, the father nonchalantly explained that it was not a real cigarette. Pardon me, but what the hell does that mean?

Users of e-cigarettes, convinced the things are harmless to others, are using the things in places and situations where cigarettes have long been banished. The thing may not pose an immediate health risk, but it certainly is sending kids mixed messages about the harmfulness of smoking. I can recall just a few years ago where this same parent went to great lengths to hide his smoking from his own kids. Now, armed with an e-cigarette, his smoking is no longer confined to out on the balcony or in dank stairwells.

Frankly, this openness is also making some potentially embarrassing situations for me. For example, do I post up photos of a dad toking on an e-cigarette while sitting in a circle of kids opening birthday presents? I’ve got a feeling the comments from the netizens would not be very kind.

Photos: Ozont (Flickr)

Beijing’s municipal government has adopted a comprehensive smoking ban for all indoor venues. But as we’ve seen in other measures, the city is in no hurry to have clean air. As such, this new set of regulations won’t take effect until June 1, 2015.

Along with smoking banned in all indoor venues, outdoors, it will be prohibited near schools and at historic places. No smoking will be permitted on public transportation, either.

Forgive our skepticism, but this was tried once before in 2008, and failed, miserably. Why did it take seven years to try again? One tenet of the new smoking ban indicates that smoking rooms will be removed from Beijing Capital International Airport. What will that prove or improve?

There are about as many smokers in China as there are Americans, in the neighborhood of 300 million. While smoking is not nearly as prevalent or acceptable as it was in China a decade ago, it is still far more publicly permissible here than in most other countries.

We hope the ban succeeds, but it does beg some important questions: who is going to enforce the ban? What will the fines and other punishments be? Who is going to deal with the off-the-handle reactions often seen when people are asked to curtail their publicly unacceptable behavior? It’s possible that an all-out, zero tolerance effort, like we saw with drunk driving, could be very effective. We’d like to be pleasantly surprised on this one.

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 This post first appeared on thebeijinger.com on December 1, 2014

Photo: news.com.au vis the Beijinger

The smoking ban started in China on 1st of May, which prohibits smoking in public indoor areas. Owners of bars and restaurants would be required to have visible “no-smoking” signs. However, 6 months after this regulation, it seems to have a long way to go.

“A survey conducted by an environmental group finds that a government ban on smoking in indoor public venues has been completely ignored by half of Beijing’s restaurants, a finding that underscores the challenges of controlling tobacco in a country with 300 million smokers.”

As I lived in France for the past 10 years, I remember the smoking ban came into effect in France on February 2007 in all bars, cafes, everyone all respected the next day. How come it doesn’t work in China?

I remember that I have a friend who came to Beijing to visit me the next Sunday after May 1st. We went to a small café close to San Li Tun. As my friend is a smoker, so we asked the café owner if it would be ok for him to smoke. She said “of course”. So I told her that the smoking ban was coming out on 1st of May and she said she hadn’t been informed. I noticed that 3 Chinese men were also smoking next to our table. If nobody is aware of this regulation in this country, how this is going to work?

The 40 per cent tax on cigarettes makes them the largest single source of tax revenue in China based on Beijing Today– generating £45 billion last year – and Beijing controls the entire industry via the State Tobacco Monopoly Administration, which sets production quotas and prices. In effect, the Chinese government runs the world’s largest tobacco company.

A survey last year found that only 23 % of adults in China believe smoking causes heart attacks, lung cancer etc. As I lived in France for nearly 10 years, I know that smokers could be scolded by their doctors. Almost everyone in France knows that smoking is bad for health. However, I talked one time with a worker from An Hui province in China and he thinks that smoking is a very natural way to relax.

Smoking is also part of Chinese tradition. We often see lots of cigarettes pile up on the lunch table during Chinese wedding ceremony. The bride needs to light up the cigarette for the guest. Packs of cigarettes are also treated as gifts for friends and families. During business meeting or diner, people exchange cigarette as a way to start the communication.  

The new regulation still does not specify punishments for business owners like restaurants who break the ban nor specify penalties for smokers in public areas. In Europe like Ireland, breaking rule like this would cost RMB 3000.

So Chinese do have a long list to do to be smoke-free in public areas.