Smoking is extremely harmful for the vital organs of our human body and it can sometime even cause death. A renowned English news daily in Bangladesh citing World Health Organization (WHO)’s commenton tobacco consumption reported that in any form consuming tobacco kills more than 161,000 people on average every year, amounting to around 19% of all deaths in Bangladesh.Moreover, the evidence has been corroborated in a science directed bio-medical journal “Effects of electronic cigarette smoke exposure on oral and systemic health” that cigarette contains 7,000 chemical substances out of which 70 chemical substances are cancer-causing substances.We know that cancer can cause long term painful suffering and also death at worst case scenario. Now smoking at the restaurants make it vulnerable for all the other people coming there at the restaurants with family and children and at times of the pandemic it is even riskier.

Dhaka, the capital and the largest city of Bangladesh is home to a ofpopulation of approximately 20 million. A large portion of these peoplewho include office goers, university students, and business people, many of those cannot make time to prepare food for themselves rely on restaurant made foods. Household population who remains at home also goes to restaurants with family and friends for having different kinds of food in restaurants for recreational activities.

Recently, Dhaka Ahsania Mission (DAM) conducted a cross-sectional survey in 371 restaurants in Dhaka city back in June of 2019. It was found that 98% of the Dhaka City Restaurant authorities were not complying with tobacco control (TC) law. DAM organized an online zoom meeting with Dhaka North City Corporation (DNCC) high officials and Bangladesh Restaurant Owners Association (BROA) authorities.They are also in the process of having the same kind of meeting in the current month with Dhaka South City Corporation (DSCC) high-up officials regarding the Dhaka City Restaurant Baseline Survey which was conducted to check the compliance of the tobacco control law of Dhaka City restaurants. Later, the survey results were shared with the journalists through an online zoom meeting as journalists are also a stakeholder of the law related issue.

DAM conducted survey found that about 98% of the Dhaka city restaurant authorities are not complying with tobacco control law in the restaurants which is a matter of great concern as the number of restaurants not following the TC law are higher. According to section-4 of Bangladesh Tobacco Control law, smoking is prohibited in the restaurants. Now, in the later part of rule-7 (Ka) it is mentioned that the owners/supervisors/managers would have to keep their public places and public transport completely smoking free. This law clearly shows that it is the responsibility of the owners/supervisors/managers for keeping their restaurants (which falls under public places) completely smoke free and not to mention that they are going to be held accountable if any TC law is not complied. According to rule-8, it is compulsory for all public place and public transport to display the highest cautionary signage. However, according to the survey92% restaurants were seen to have any kinds of cautionary signage. This survey result shows that the restaurants are not taking the matter of using no smoking seriously even when it is there in the TC law regardless of the fact that the no smoking signage can be made with few expenses and within a short time.

The Chief Health Officer of DNCC said that the corporation should take stern actions against those restaurants which do not abide by the tobacco control law. The mediashouldreport more on recent statistics to grab the attention of the government to implement the tobacco control law in the restaurants of Dhaka City and also raise awareness of the mass people at the same time. If success can be found from the Dhaka City restaurants’ implementation of tobacco control law then DAM is going to use the same procedure with concerned stakeholders gradually all over Bangladesh to ensure smoke free restaurants throughout Bangladesh. This would also be a step forward towards achieving the national goal which Honorable Prime Minister of Bangladesh Sheikh Hasina herself earlier announced, “Bangladesh will be a tobacco free country by 2040”.

The author is working as a Media Manager at Dhaka Ahsania Mission Health Sector (Tobacco Control Project).