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Smoking bans coming to South Australia

July 19, 2006 on 1:49 pm | In Slot machine articles online |

Licenced venues in Queensland, Australia recently became smoke free (Slot machine blog). On July 1, 2006 the Qld goverment introduced smoking bans. Plenty of notice was given, and venues had a long lead time to build specialised outdoor smoking areas.

South Australia is following a similar path - smoking will be completely banned in 2007:

“After 31 October 2007 all South Australian enclosed workplaces, including hotels and clubs, will be smoke-free.”

SA Govt site

Anecdotal evidence suggests Queensland venues are noticing the difference. Turnover and patronage are down. As happened in Victoria when similar bans were introduced, it is likely they will recover.

South Australia has an amusing interim measure in place:

“Your venues is required to designate at least 50% of gaming machines, and one metre around these machines, as non-smoking.”

Its reminiscent of the old smoking/non smoking sections on aircraft - completely pointless. Smoke has a tendency to waft whereever it pleases, and a one metre exclusion zone is of limited value. The number of smokers present is likely to be unchanged, so the amount of smoke present in the venue overall will also be unchanged.