A special squad to track down and prosecute people found lighting up in non-smoking areas may be established.
Smoking is banned in shopping centres, supermarkets, department stores and banks under the Smoking (Public) (Amendment) Ordinance enacted in June 1997. Restaurants that can seat more than 200 people also have had to reserve one-third of their places for non-smokers since July.
Those who smoke in restricted areas can be fined $5,000.
But legislators complain many people still smoke in shopping malls and restaurants and on escalators.
Democrat Fred Li Wah-ming told a Legco health services panel: 'Many smoke in non-smoking areas, but there haven't been any prosecutions [in the shopping malls] for the past 18 months. Will there be some plain-clothes officers used for inspection?' Principal assistant secretary for health and welfare Eddie Poon Tai-ping said the department was considering whether to set up a Tobacco Control Office, incorporating an inspection team.
'We hope to give it [the inspection team] the power to prosecute those who smoke in restricted areas. But this is a preliminary idea. We have to discuss it with the Department of Justice and we don't have a time frame so far.' Mr Poon said people found smoking in shopping centres were not prosecuted because they usually extinguished their cigarettes after being warned.
