Smoking Ban in Japan
But it the lack of non-smoking areas in Japan could start to become a thing of the past...
The prefecture of Kanagawa is home to 8.9 million people - the second largest prefecture by population after Tokyo and is where Yokohama is located.
Looks likely that Kanagawa is going to ban smoking in public facilities such as restaurants, pachinko parlors, schools, hospitals, department stores and hotels.
And just in case you was wondering about hospitals - many of them have a smoking room - not sure about schools.
Offenders who smoke or who allow smoking on these facilities will be fined. Places that people will be allowed to smoke at are ones house, rest areas and warehouses (why warehouses?!)
The proposed ban has been put forward by Matsuzawa Shigefumi who is the governor of Kanagawa so the likely hood of this ban being put in place is high. Matsuzawa says that the proposal has been put forward as a measure to prevent lung cancer by protecting the health of non-smokers who end up passive smoking.
If this ban is implemented then it will be the first of its kind in Japan. Source via Yahoo News and Mainichi.
This is personally good news and I hope that this ban extends to Tokyo too. One of the things I particularly enjoyed about living in Seattle for a while was the smoking-free restaurants.
Having said that, I have a lot of friends who do smoke and will be asking them how they feel about the ban the next time I see them.
What do you think about the regional banning of smoking in public facilities? Would be interesting to hear views of smokers and non-smokers alike.
As for the photo - its my driving license. Japan tried to introduce an ID card called Taspo. The idea was that all smokers would carry it as ID when purchasing cigarettes from vending machines as a measure to prevent kids from smoking.
The problem with Taspo is that one was required to give personal ID just to get a card which has lead to a lot of people not bothering with Taspo.
The ministry of finance has acknowledged this issue and has announced that folks will be able to use their driving license instead of Taspo.
At the moment 83% of cigarette vending machines are fitted with Taspo card readers but will soon be fitted with driving license readers too. News and image of card reader at Tokyo NP.
Nearly forgot to mention - I asked whether there were non smoking seats at a cafe and was lead to the round table that you see at the bottom of the photo. I discovered that the smoking section was where the man in the suit was sitting...
And if you are wondering about the figure - its Mizuki takase-chan.
