Most buildings in Jakarta smoke-free: Survey

Two months after the enactment of an anti-smoking bylaw, the majority of office and commercial buildings in Jakarta have banned smoking and scrapped smoking sections, a survey has found.

The survey, conducted by Swisscontact Indonesia Foundation in collaboration with a number of NGOs, found that 72 percent of buildings surveyed had implemented the ban.

The survey was conducted between Nov. 1 and Dec. 14 this year on 107 buildings in the city including 53 government buildings, 30 private establishments and 24 commercial buildings.

Swisscontact executive director Dollaris Riauaty Suhadi said that 78 of the buildings surveyed had fully implemented the ban.

City Bylaw No. 88/2010 on smoke-free areas stipulates that smoking is not allowed inside buildings.

The new bylaw is an extension of a smoking ban that allowed smoking in designated areas in workplaces and public spaces. It amended the 2005 bylaw, which stated that smoking sections must be separated from non-smoking areas. A smoking section must also have exhaust fans, ashtrays and posters on the hazard of smoking.

The survey, jointly conducted by the Jakarta Environment Management Agency (BPLHD), Swisscontact and the University of Indonesia’s Demography Institute, found that smoke from smoking sections in buildings seeped into non-smoking areas.

In a related development, head of the City’s Manpower Agency Deded Sukendar said that the administration has closed down smoking rooms in 50 buildings run by private companies since the beginning of November this year.

Deded said the decision was made because the building operators had failed to comply with their demand to close their smoking sections.

“Some we had to forcefully close down, but most scrapped the areas themselves during our inspections,” he said.

Many of the buildings were operated by automotive and garment companies in North Jakarta, Deded said.

The agency deploys 150 officers to conduct weekly inspections of buildings operated by private companies.

The manpower agency painted a less rosy picture of the effectiveness of the smoking ban.

“At least 40 percent of a total of 29,000 company buildings have complied with the bylaw as of November,” he said.

Jakarta Culture and Tourism Agency head Arie Budiman said the hospitality industry had proven less willing to comply with the ban.

“Businesses like bars, cafes and nightclubs have agreed to enact the ban, but we need to convince them that customers won’t go away once they do,” Arie said.