Thank you for the excellent article on non-smoking areas in Hong Kong restaurants ('Smokers light up in best seats,' South China Morning Post, September 6). The comments of the majority of those responsible for arranging the seating in restaurants was almost as pathetic as the attitude of the catering industry legislator, Tommy Cheung Yu-yan, who not only admitted that he 'did not go to a lot of restaurants', but 'did not think seating was an issue'. His comment that 'if customers don't like the seating arrangements, they should exercise their rights and go somewhere else' is ridiculous when the majority of establishments adopt a similar policy.
As long as the government continues to permit smoking in eating places, despite the overwhelming evidence that smoking is bad for health anywhere, and is at least as dangerous for passive smokers as it is for those who persist with this unsociable habit, the obvious solution is for those responsible to place the smoking tables nearest to the establishments' extraction systems. This way the smoke is not drawn across the tables of those who choose not to smoke. In most cases this would result in the relocation of the smoking tables to the least desirable areas where the more sensible members of the public are presently consigned.
TONY CARROLL
Mid-Levels