After five years of public debate and controversy, Asia’s self proclaimed world city – Hong Kong, is finally getting close to putting a smoking-ban bill into place. On the 24th of January this year the government revealed its proposed anti-smoking bill. The legislation is now being examined by its own Smoking bill Committee – the final stage before the new laws are voted on. But as Paschali Malamidis reports the watered down regulations have left anti-smoking activists frustrated.

It was expected that Hong Kong would follow the lead of other cities around the world and ban smoking in public places this year.

Indeed the Secretary for Health, Welfare and Food, York Chow had promised last year that the ban would be in place by the middle of 2006 and would not include any exemptions. But after a long public debate and negotiations Mr. Chow introduced a watered down version of the legislation last month claiming it was not perfect but the most acceptable.

While banning smoking in all indoor workplaces from the beginning of 2007, the bill exempts bars that only serve customers 18 and above, mahjong parlors and saunas, until mid 2009.

Annalise Connel the Chairperson of the anti pollution lobby group ‘Clear the Air’, says the government has bowed to pressure from the tobacco industry.

"We’ve been waiting for this legislation for five years. It’s finally on the books but we’re still rather disappointed that they’re considering exemptions when people are getting sick and dying from tobacco smoke. This is an issue of public health. The strange part to us in Clear the Air is that we go to the Liquor Licensing Board and we haven’t heard any of the restaurants say anything except pass the law and we’ll follow it. All we hear are people making a lot of noise, people funded by the tobacco industry saying that it’s going to destroy business."

But Tommy Cheung, Chairman of the Hong Kong Catering Industry Association and Liberal Party member of the Legislative Council, argues that the exemptions make economic sense.

He has been the loudest opponent of anti-smoking legislation and claims that up to 100 thousand jobs could be lost if smoking were banned in all entertainment venues.

"I think we should go ahead with exempting these places and not naming when, because those are not a lot of employees. Even though you can say why those employees should not be protected. The point is we heard a lot of employees working in those industries saying they don’t need protection. They want their jobs. They know a smoking ban is very undesirable and they would lose their jobs. They would rather have jobs and they are mostly first hand smokers you know, so they are not worried about second hand smoking."

But are Hong Kong’s bar workers worried about the exemptions that will leave some places smoke free and others still under the cloud of smoking? The Zinga Lounge Bar in Soho is one of Hong Kong’s few non-smoking bars and its workers seem very happy with its clear air.

"I feel no smoking bar is very good for the health of the staff who works in the bar, and I think that’s great. Just because it’s good health for everybody."

A few doors away and you hear a similar point of view from a another patron.

"I actually can’t wait for it to happen. I hate smoking and I’m only in this bar cause my friend asked me to come and have a drink & luckily there’s no one smoking. But I think they should do something about it earlier. I think they’re being wimpy."

Another patron in the same bar argues though that a drink and a cigarette go together and to ban smoking in bars is crazy.

"Ok I think for the restaurant part I think it’s ok but for the bar part I think it’s quite ridiculous. Because like me I’m not a bar goer right? I don’t smoke. Like alcohol and smoke are like sinful stuff. They have to get along. Even though I hate people smoking I go to the bar."

For the moment Hong Kong’s diners and drinkers will have to put up with the smoke and the status quo. Smokers however have won a reprieve, but not for long and not in all public places. Soon the new legislation will emerge from the committee stage to be voted on by the legislature. When this happens the debate is certain to reignite.