Lobby changes tack in smoking war
Licensing board is asked to give pubs and restaurants a choice - serve alcohol or allow smokers
An anti-pollution group is trying to speed up the process of banning smoking in restaurants and bars by lobbying the Liquor Licensing Board to force them to choose between serving alcohol and allowing customers to smoke.
Clear the Air yesterday began petitioning the board against renewal of the liquor licences of bars and restaurants unless they go smoke-free. This would include the display of no-smoking signs, removal of ashtrays and agreeing to ask people to stop smoking or leave.
The group says it will challenge the granting of liquor licences to establishments that allow smoking, on the grounds that they are breaking occupational safety laws.
Clear the Air hopes the action will throw light on the viability of an eventual lawsuit against big tobacco companies in Hong Kong.
The move comes in spite of plans by health officials to ban smoking in all indoor bars and restaurants by the middle of next year.
According to Clear the Air's vice-chairwoman, Annelise Connell, the goal is to encourage bars and restaurants already receptive towards a smoking ban to go smoke-free ahead of the legislation's introduction and to inform businesses of their obligations under current labour laws.
'We think the Liquor Licensing Board has not been aware of how easy it is to make premises smoke-free,' she said, alluding to the voluntary smoke-free transition made by Central pub The Dublin Jack last July.
Latest statistics show there were 4,758 liquor licences granted by the Food and Environmental Health Department.
Speaking soon after a licensing board meeting yesterday, chairman Alfred Lam Kwok-cheong said all public petitions would be heard before each licence was renewed.
Catering sector legislative councillor Tommy Cheung Yu-yan, a critic of the proposed ban on smoking in indoor bars and restaurants, is also a member of the board.
Clear the Air argues that under the Occupational Health and Safety Ordinance, owners who allow customers to smoke are violating requirements to maintain a reasonably safe workplace that does not pose a health risk.
But solicitor Lau Kar-wah, who is advising Clear the Air free of charge, said he did not believe the licensing board would rule in the group's favour.
'The ordinance has never explicitly excluded cigarette smoke as an occupational hazard. The question is whether people can [accept] that smoking is just as much an occupational safety concern as other things, such as spilt oil that causes an employee to slip and fall,' he said.
Mr Lau said a ruling in favour of the lobby group would open up the possibility of lawsuits from workers against employers who allow customers to smoke, but he did not believe it would trigger a flood of civil grievances.
If the board ruled against Clear the Air, it would either seek to amend the occupational safety laws in the Legislative Council or take the licensing board to court to seek a judicial review of the law, he said.
