PUBLIC'S BEHAVIOUR AND ATTITUDE TOWARDS THE SMOKING BAN

Abstract

Smoking has been banned in hawker centres, coffeeshops and cafes since July 2006. It is proposed to be banned in entertainment outlets come July 2007. The author seeks to understand if this will result in an economic impact for food outlet and entertainment outlet owners. This is conducted by studying the behaviour and attitude of smokers and non-smokers towards the smoking ban through a designed survey questionnaire. As the recent extension of the smoking ban affects food outlets and entertainment outlets, any impact felt by the owners and businessmen would indirectly affect the landlord and proprietors especially when tenants fail to pay rent. Thus, this study explores the behaviours of customers towards the smoking ban to concur the possible impact of it. The results of the survey show that most non-smokers are in favour of the smoking ban while the smokers feel otherwise. Moreover, most of the smokers (65.34%) agree to considering going to another food outlet should seats at the smoking corner be unavailable in one food outlet. This would indirectly mean loss of income for food outlets. For future research, it would also be interesting to study the similar impact on entertainment outlets when the smoking ban is implemented there come 1st July 2007.