Friday, September 7, 2007

We were supposed to be smoke free by now

The following news item is from June 2004:

The health affairs department at Muscat Municipality has drafted a plan to ban smoking in commercial centres, shops and industrial establishments in various wilayats of Muscat governorate.

The plan was prepared in cooperation with the department of fighting non-communicable diseases at the Ministry of Health.

The plan will be implemented in two phases. The first phase, which covers first category restaurants, will continue until August.

The second phase, which covers all closed and public areas, will begin in September and continue until August 2006. � ONA

From the Oman Observer that same day:
The first phase, which began recently and continues till August this year, involves the implementation of a system whereby Grade A and First Class restaurants are required to devote 50 per cent of their areas to non-smokers and to put up boards indicating the same.

The second plan, from September 2004 to August 2006, implements a total ban on smoking in all closed public areas or total separation of smoking and non-smoking areas so that the air cannot mix between the two sections, added Al Kishri.

Closed areas with children's games and restaurants and other food outlets surrounding these and other areas where children gather should implement a total ban on smoking.
What happened?

5 comments:

Solafa said...

Well, this was exactly what i wanted to know in my previous post...

Thank you Muscati for providing the information, though its a bit out of date, but it seems nothing was done in regards to what so called "A TWO PHASED PLAN"...

Well, i am not in Oman to judge, and in my visits recently i did not get enough chance to dine out and observe things around, but again out of my own guess i still beleive that many places [ rest. and cafes] still allows smokers to smoke any where they like in the premises, i might be wrong but this is more or less logical to me based on the permission of smoking sheesha in many places nowdays.......

Solafa said...

Muscati, do think that they will ever implement what they have planned in the near future?


What happend to MOH? Where are they? Don't they have any duties to care for the public and try to force things across the authorites to provide better place for breathing clean air!

Anonymous said...

outright bans are ineffective because they cannot be fairly enforced
properly administered cessation campaigns through public announcements and so on are better and do not infringe on personal liberties

a7MeDiNo said...

Well, the "fancy restaurants" should have a smokers and non-smokers section..so I guess this would be unnecessary in fancy restaurants, but would be very necessary in food courts etc.

Unknown said...

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