As of April 30, the use of alternative smoking products – including e-cigarettes, heated tobacco products, and herbal cigarettes – in public spaces is banned.
Public possession alone brings a HK$3,000 penalty. More serious breaches, including the importation or sale of these items, mean a fine of up to HK$50,000 and up to six months in jail.
As of 5pm yesterday, the office’s inspectors had conducted 216 operations and issued four penalty notices.
Speaking on an RTHK programme, control office head Manny Lam pointed out that the ban on the importation of alternative smoking products had been in force for four years and that such regulations are not unique to Hong Kong.
“If we look at the whole world, more than 30 countries and regions have imposed similar laws, including Singapore and Thailand, which rolled out such regulations in 2014 and 2018, respectively,” he said.
“We have not seen any impact on their tourist numbers following such bans.
Lam said his office had been informing tourists about the ban since the beginning of the year. He said this involved collaborating with Customs, the Tourism Board, the Travel Industry Authority, and airlines.
As for the January 1 expansion of the smoking ban to within three metres of doorways of places like hospitals and government clinics, schools, residential-care homes and child-care centres, Lam said more than 11,000 inspections had been carried out in the first quarter.
They resulted in more than 2,100 fixed-penalty notices being issued, including 23 for smoking in the newly stipulated areas.