From coffeeshops to cyberspace, you can almost see the smoke rising. Those who insist on puffing at food courts and hawker centres are locked in a turf war with non-smokers put off by the habit.

The law, which kicked in six months back, is clear: Eating establishments are supposed to confine smokers inside a clearly-marked yellow box, which should take up no more than 20 per cent of their outdoor area.

Quite simply, it is not working. And in some cases, its ineffectiveness is giving rise to frustration.

Recently, two smokers walked up to a man sitting inside the yellow box at Holland Village. "Do you smoke?" the man was asked. When he said he did not, they told him to leave the area. Reasoned one of the smokers: "How can non-smokers sit in our zone when we can't sit in theirs?"

But more often than not, the anger comes from the opposite direction. Those who had looked forward to smoke-free meals are getting frustrated seeing smokers openly encroaching their space or blowing smoke in their direction.

"I will take pictures of all smokers at the coffeeshop and send to the police," ranted an angry posting on a local online forum.

The problems, a check by this newspaper revealed, are obvious. The main one is that the eating establishments themselves are not keen to enforce the restrictions, while the National Environment Agency (NEA) lacks the resources to keep regular tabs on them.

At a 24-hour coffeeshop at Yishun, this reporter counted at least 12 errant smokers in an area that spilled out beyond the 20-per-cent area allowance - and the coffeeshop owner, who was supposed to help enforce the ban, was smoking with her patrons at one of the tables.

A coffeeshop assistant said "nine out of 10" operators would just "close one eye" to errant smoking, but would not admit to the fact openly.

"If you want to make money, you have no choice," she said. "If you are very strict you will be very busy calling the authorities all day and you will lose a lot of customers. When people drink and smoke, there's business."

Related to this is the placement of the smoking box, which sometimes makes a mockery of the rule. Eleven of 20 eating places checked had smoking areas situated in the midst of, or an arm's reach away from, non-smoking tables.

At one establishment in Bugis, smokers sit in an L-shaped row of tables, blowing smoke at others. At another Holland Village coffeeshop, they virtually encircle the non-smokers.

"Having a law is good on the surface, but it cannot control where the smoke goes," said a mother in her 30s, who complained about having to put up with second-hand smoke.

Also, the NEA oversees the area within which smokers must be confined, but not how many can be seated in the space. This means coffeeshops can squeeze as many seats or tables in the smoking areas as they want and still be in line with the law.

The law itself has not managed to nail many offenders. Between July and November last year, the NEA fined 28 eating places - 13 of which were coffeeshops - and 335 smokers. That's about one coffeeshop a month and two errant smokers a day. In contrast, at just three of the venues this newspaper checked, 23 people were spotted puffing away openly outside of the designated boxes.

But enforcing the ban can be a stretch for NEA's 330 public health inspectors, because they also oversee all other areas of public health, such as littering, dengue and food hygiene. They visit some 90 food outlets a day - just 1 per cent of the 6,400 hawker centres, coffeeshops, outdoor restaurants and entertainment venues in Singapore.

The NEA said that that the new policy could not "eliminate exposure" to cigarette smoke but sought to "limit (and) confine smoking to a single location where practical" so as to "minimise (a patron's) exposure to second-hand smoke". It added that with the smoking ban, "exposure to second-hand smoke (has been) significantly reduced".

MAYBE WE NEED A BIGGER STICK
When Hong Kong decided to implement smoking restrictions, there were no half-measures. It simply enacted a complete ban on smoking in most public areas.

Several Singaporeans favoured that approach over the calibrated one adopted by the NEA.

A smoker even said that people like him would not be deterred by the current restrictions as they were not likely to get caught in the first place.

"Either increase enforcement or ban smoking in places outright," he said.

Added a 22-year-old student: "They should just ban smoking totally in coffeeshops, and only allow smoking a certain distance away from the eating area."

The NEA, however, said that it was not planning to implement a large-scale ban at this point.

Mr Charles Chong, who heads the Government Parliamentary Committee on National Development and Environment, still felt that a complete ban was the way to go.

"The Hong Kong authorities are quite right to bite the bullet and put in place an effective measure to curb second-hand smoke," he said. - TODAY/st