Smoke-free dining at nearly 800 restaurants
Dublin Jack in Central may be the only pub in Hong Kong where patrons are banned from lighting up, but there are nearly 800 registered smoke-free restaurants in the city, according to health officials.
Despite the catering industry's concerns that restaurant receipts would plummet if forthcoming regulations to ban smoking in all pubs and restaurants take effect, most eateries reported business as usual after going smoke-free.
A total of 781 restaurants have opted to be listed on the 2004 Hong Kong Smoke-free Restaurants Guide, first published by the Health Department's tobacco control office in March. Hong Kong has a total of 9,862 restaurants.
The guide is intended to help provide more choice for non-smokers when dining out. It is dominated by fast-food chains such as McDonald's, Cafe de Coral and Genki Sushi, but also includes a handful of more upmarket restaurants.
'We went smoke-free in March when we heard about this programme. I can't say we really noticed any change in business,' said Karen Leung, a spokeswoman for fast-food chain KFC.
Noel Smyth, managing director for the group that owns Dublin Jack, said business had been satisfactory in the three weeks since the pub banned smoking.
Liberal Party legislator Tommy Cheung Yu-yan argues that the fact close to 800 restaurants chose to go smoke-free shows that a free-market approach is more suitable in tackling health concerns about smoking.
Previous studies predicted that fast-food restaurants would be least affected by a smoke-free policy, the catering industry representative added, suggesting that smaller individual restaurants would find the going tougher.
At Tsim Sha Tsui eatery Cafe Marco, manager Carmen Yew said two out of every 10 people who called to book were turned away because it was smoke-free. 'Business is affected, but we still manage to fill the tables during lunch hours.'
