Health Minister Wael Abu Faour announced that indoor smoking ban will be enforced, and that the ministry will be raiding restaurants and other enclosed public places to make sure the law is being implemented. The first attempt to ban smoking took place two years ago and failed miserably as the majority of restaurants, pubs and venues are breaking Law 174.
I would love to see the smoking ban law implemented in Lebanon but I believe Minister Abou Faour should take a pragmatic approach and avoid the mistakes that were done before, specially in regards to restaurants serving shisha that are still growing in numbers unfortunately and are the biggest problem nowadays. If we want this smoking ban to really work, it should be done in several phases and over 1 or 2 years to allow all pubs and restaurants to adapt. In fact, if the government had adopted a proper strategy back in 2012, the law would be running smoothly by now.
In all cases, we can’t but support any initiative to cut down smoking in Lebanon so let’s see how things will go this time.
You’re clearly misinformed, as the law passed in 2011 but didn’t extend initially to touristic establishments. The entire touristic sector was given a full year to adapt, but very few establishments bothered to do so because they were betting on the repeal of the law. When 60% of our youth aged 12-16 smoke arguileh, the government should raise the alarm and ensure the strictest possible implementation. Public health policy is about protecting the health of every citizen, not about making happy a handful of restaurateurs who can’t care less about the collateral damage they’re causing to inflate their pockets.
I am not sure how misinformed I am. I know they were given a year but it wasn’t implemented neither was the law and I am sure you know that.
What the government SHOULD do is different from what it CAN do. If you want to impose strict measures it won’t work out just like the first time and I couldn’t care less about making few restaurants happy.
Let’s clarify this again: the law passed in Aug 2011, but it wasn’t due to become effective in touristic establishments until Sept 2012. During that year, establishment owners were encouraged to start adapting by dividing their venues into smoking/non-smoking sections, making their customers aware of the law, etc. The law didn’t give any authority to the ministries to fine establishments who didn’t start adapting; on the contrary, the approach was conciliatory because the Syndicate of Restaurants insisted on a grace period of a year with no fines.
Now if you’re saying the law should have IMPOSED smoking/non-smoking sections during that year and given ministries the authority to fine establishments if they didn’t comply, that’s another story. Given where we are today, strict implementation is the only solution, and it CAN work just like it did the first 4 months (when compliance was at 90%) – the reason things fell apart was the unwillingness of ministers back then to continue with strict implementation.