Should smoking be banned in the restaurants, bars and pubs in Hong Kong?
...ll cause cancer. Besides, the secondhand smoke will alter all the people at the same enclosed area, no matter they smoke or not (“Secondhand Smoke,” 2002). Restaurants, bars and pubs, undoubtedly, are enclosed areas which contain plenty of customers, so if smoking is practiced there, people will definitely suffer from it. On the other hand, there are no regulations to prohibit smoking indoor, but only ease the problem, for example, the chapter 371 of Basic Law stated that “Requirement of restaurants providing more than 200 seating accommodation to designate not less than one-third of space as no smoking areas” (“Smoking,” 2002, para. 4). It is an ineffective method, since it was reported by Hong Kong Council on Smoking and Health that the separation of smoking zone from non smokers is not good enough, although it can reduce the smoke in non-smoking zone, people cannot totally stay behind it. And, the ventilation system cannot completely purify the air (“Smoke-free,” n.d.). People are still suffering from it. Furthermore, they even seem to be no controlling action towards bars and pubs in this aspect. Therefore, smoking should be banned entirely in enclosed area in order to prevent any harmful effects carry out by secondhand smoke. Besides, the social image of Hong Kong could be enhanced due to the comprehensive banning of smoking in restaurants, bars and pubs. Smoking rate may affect social image inversely. According to Newsday, people who have quitted smoking increase in U.S.A., and the most successful state, Utah, have made good use of “strong social prohibitions” which include the entire banning of smoking in public area and the high tax of cigarette (Yee, 2004). Moreover, it was reported by Australian Broadcasting Corporation that a survey which done by current smokers indicated that about 25% of them, who will go to bars, are willing to quit smoking after smoking ban carry out (“Study,” 2002). From this, we can see the effectiveness of entire smoking ban in tackling the problem of high smoking rate and consequently enhance the social image of Hong Kong. However, some owners of restaurants, bars and pubs in Hong Kong may argue that the comprehensively banning of smoking will reduce their surplus since it will disc...