The Beijing Municipal Department of Health, Beijing Municipal Bureau of Commerce, Beijing Municipal Tourism Administration and Beijing Aiguo Weisheng have jointly issued a circular on carrying out a smoking ban among the restaurants in Beijing in an effort to provide a smoke-free Olympic Games in 2008.
According to the circular, smoking should be banned from Olympic signed hotels, Olympic venues and restaurants at the Olympic Games village and famous Chinese scenic spots before June next year. In addition, a non-smoking area that occupies no less than 75% of the total space of a restaurant should be set up in some other large and medium restaurants across the city.
Venues that fail to ban smoking totally before June 2008 due to some special accounts will be asked to manage their venues based on sub-areas refer to the practice of the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games for details.
A representative from BMDH said that the no-smoking environment of each public venue not only reflects Beijing's efforts in constructing a no-smoking environment as an Olympic city, but also influences the public's knowledge of smoking and tobacco control.
