Smoking ban passed

Japan’s Diet yesterday passed an amendment that will ban smoking in public facilities, according to a story by Tomohiro Osaki for the Japan Times.
The ban will be implemented in stages, coming into full force by April 2020, just ahead of the staging in Tokyo of the 2O20 Summer Olympics, which are due to start in July of that year.
The revision to the Health Promotion Law has been watered down from the health ministry’s original proposal, falling short of a comprehensive smoking ban in restaurants and bars.
Under the updated law, an estimated 55 percent of eateries nation-wide will end up being exempt.
This has prompted criticism from some quarters that though the amendment is a step forward, it is a far cry from the anti-smoking ordinance adopted by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government last month, which is expected to make more than 80 percent of eateries across the capital effectively smoke-free.
The revised national law will make smoking in some designated institutions illegal for the first time, penalizing non-compliant operators and smokers with fines of up to ¥500,000 and ¥300,000, respectively.
The measure, according to the health ministry, is expected to raise the World Health Organization’s grading of Japan’s anti-smoking efforts by one rank – to the second-lowest level.
The Times story reported that the amendment had been watered down after facing fierce resistance from the ruling Liberal Democratic Party and industry groups. Japan had long been soft on smoking due largely to vested interests and pork-barrel politics, a system in which the tobacco industry had thrived, it said. Even corporate giant Japan Tobacco Inc. was partially owned by the finance ministry.
The amendment makes the premises of public institutions such as schools, hospitals and municipal offices non-smoking. That is, smoking will be prohibited both indoors and outdoors in principle, though smoking spaces may be set up outside those buildings.
A less rigorous measure will apply to other public facilities, including restaurants and bars, where only indoor smoking will be outlawed. But even inside, smoking will be allowed in segregated, well-ventilated rooms, where no drinking or eating will be permitted.
Smaller restaurants will be exempt altogether.
People under the age of 20 will be prohibited from entering these establishments.
Newly established bars and restaurants will be obliged to ban smoking, regardless of size.
Under the amendment, users of heat-not-burn devices will be allowed to dine and drink in ventilated smoking rooms.