KOTA KINABALU: Sabah Parks director Dr Jamili Nais said that no areas under Sabah Parks will be gazetted under any Federal Acts as a non-smoking zone.

He disclosed this following Deputy Health Minister Datuk Seri Dr Hilmi Yahaya’s statement that his ministry will gazette all national parks nationwide to be smoke-free zones by the end of this year.

“The statement (by Dr Hilmi) refers to National Parks under the Federal Government. For areas under the Sabah Parks which is under the State Government, we will not give our approval for any of our areas to be gazetted under any Federal Act as a non-smoking area,” he told the Borneo Post yesterday.

However, he said that the Sabah Parks is studying the possibility to gazette, by itself, public and tourism areas within the Sabah Parks as non-smoking zones using the Sabah Parks Enactment.

Hilmi said on Saturday that smoke-free zones will not only refer to cigarette smoke but also items which contain nicotine such as E-cigs, vape and shisha.

If smokers are caught smoking, they will be fined a minimum of RM250 and maximum of RM5,000 under the Tobacco Control Act 2004.

Currently, 22 areas have been gazetted as smoke-free, including religious places, rest areas on the highways and education places, including universities.

Meanwhile, the government has been urged to take into consideration if banning smoking in all national parks nationwide will deter tourists who are smokers from visiting the parks.

Sabah Tourist Guide Association (STGA) president Grace Leong said gazetting national parks as smoke-free zones had its pros and cons.

Leong said the measure would certainly be well received among non-smokers but smokers would find it difficult not to light up.

“When we arrive at airports, those who are really smokers will shoot out of the airports where they can smoke.”

Leong said her friends would never go to Perdana Park for instance, even for a cup of coffee because of the no-smoking sign.

“That is why some restaurants have smoking and non-smoking areas.”

Hence, she was doubtful as to whether the measure would work on tourists.

If the smoking ban is implemented, Leong said the government should ensure that there was enforcement to carry out the job.

“There are designated smoking areas on islands, Kinabalu Park and Poring Hot Spring, but no one use it.”

As such, Leong said the relevant authority should consider whether the parks depended on tourists for income and would the smoking ban deter visitors from going to these parks.

Sabah Association of Tour and Travel Agents (Satta) president Datuk Seri Winston Liaw, however, lauded the Health Ministry’s move to gazette all national parks in the country as smoke-free zones.

“A lot of national parks in the world do not allow visitors to smoke, especially in forests as smoking is a fire hazard.”

Nonetheless, Liaw said the relevant parties such as tourist guides or park management should ensure visitors were well informed about the smoking ban before imposing fines on tourists.

He said tourist guides could inform their clients about the smoking restriction verbally or park management could put up signboards or include that in its brochures.

In addition, Liaw said the government could perhaps emulate how Zhangjiajie City in China enforce its smoking ban, which he learned from his visit to the city in 1997.

“The air was very clean then. So clean that the locals would say that every breath taken at Zhangjiajie was worth USD1.”

In those days, he said authorities would politely ask smokers who lit up to lend their lighter.

“But instead of giving it back, the authorities would confiscate the lighters and warn smokers to extinguish their cigarettes.

“Ten years after the implementation, no one smokes (at designated areas) in Zhangjiajie anymore.”

Liaw said the government could actually emulate what was done in Zhangjiajie in the initial stage before moving on to issuing fines on smokers later on.

Source:
courtesy of THE BORNEO POST

by Sabah news

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