If you think, you will not encounter smoke when you walk into a pub or a restaurant, now that the ban is in place, think again.
For it may be too early to expect a miracle. Restaurants and pubs in the city have adopted a wait and watch policy, and are yet to make arrangements to implement the ban on smoking in public places.
While many of the restaurants have prepared the necessary signage, work on completely segregating smokers from the non-smokers is yet to begin. "That is because we haven't received any circular or notification explaining the details so far," said Suhas Vishwasrao, manager, Hawaiian Shack, a pub in Bandra, which has restricted arrangements to keeping a board with an 'anti-smoking' message ready.
"As far as business is concerned, there may be a problem for the initial 10 to 15 days of implementation of the ban. But we are not very worried about it," he added.
"There has been no intimation from the authorities. We know about the ban only from newspapers and advertisements in the media. We have no about who these so-called authorities in whom the power to implement the ban has been vested — is it the BMC, the FDA or the police?" asked Romi Chaddha, Khar-based hotelier, who runs a restaurant called Kosmic.
That's not all. There are so many things that are unclear. For instance, are seating arrangements in garden restaurants considered as 'public places'? What about the area outside restaurants? Can people smoke there? asked another hotelier.
"The law is not clear about hookahs either. Hookahs are not like cigarettes, that can be carried in one's pocket. They are bigger, and need to be refilled with coal. One can't go to another room to smoke a hookah," pointed out Chaddha.
Lack of clarity has resulted in misinterpretation of the law. Cafe Mondegar, a popular pub in Colaba is yet to make fresh arrangements. "We already have an a/c section which is a non-smoking zone, with a seating capacity of ten," said a spokesperson.
However, people who want to access this section will have to walk in through the smoking section of the pub.
Café Leopold, another popular pub, has prepared a board which proclaims smoking restrictions. "We will place it prominently,”said the manager who did not wish to be named. With no clarity about the law, it is wait and watch policy for now.
DNA India.
No comments:
Post a Comment