Draft Tobacco Law Looks Better Than It Is

The Daily Star on the devil in the draft law’s details:

As it stands, the draft law would fine individual smokers who violate the smoking ban in public places, while establishment owners would have no legal responsibility to prevent their clients from smoking.

This creates all sorts of situations where smokers can conspire with shop owners to the detriment of the rest of us. If the owner of a restaurant is not penalized, turning a blind eye to a smoking customer will come at no cost. This is a broken law that incentivizes cheating.

It’s not like our MPs haven’t had time to fix that. I spotted that problem since the draft law was sent to me in February. So i’m tempted to believe that that this is an intentional loophole designed to placate restaurant owners.