Smokers not off the hook despite appeal
Tobacco control officers will continue to fine smokers, but they will not have to pay pending the outcome of an appeal over a ruling on the definition of an indoor area under the smoking-ban legislation.
The appeal in the case of Ho Yau-yin will be heard by the Court of Final Appeal on April 21.
The government has asked the top court for an interpretation of what constitutes an indoor area under the Smoking (Public Health) Ordinance.
A spokeswoman for a bar group said she hoped the definition could be decided soon.
'After all, the loophole in the legislation was not our fault,' Hong Kong Bars and Karaoke Rights Advocacy executive secretary Anita To Miu-yu said.
She estimated that 10 per cent of the group's 80 members would be affected by the final ruling.
To said the industry had gone downhill this year since the smoking ban went into effect in bars and pubs in July.
The government contends an indoor area can be a space not closed on all sides but one with more than half of its total area enclosed.
Ho, a hawker-control officer, was convicted by a magistrate of holding a lit cigarette in a no-smoking area - the extension of Fu Kee cafeteria in Sham Tseng, an area enclosed by plastic curtaining but outside the main body of the business.
The ruling was quashed by the Court of First Instance.
