Where there's a will, there's a way

• Source: Global Times
• [09:40 July 01 2010]
• Comments

With faulty cigarette lighters at smoking areas inside the Expo Park, two visitors still manage to light their smokes Wednesday after a cook (back) who works at a nearby restaurant showed up with a lighter. Photo: Ni Dandan

By Ni Dandan

With faulty cigarette lighters at designated smoking areas inside the Expo Park giving smokers another reason to light up in open spaces wherever fire can be found, organizers vowed Wednesday to improve the "smoke-free" environment promised to visitors a month ago.

Hong Hao, director general of the Shanghai World Expo Coordination Bureau, said that organizers would look into claims that the smoking areas have been poorly maintained.

He added that more smoking areas will be added to the 37 smoking spots inside the park to deter visitors from lighting up anywhere, but skirted blame for the smokers regularly seen puffing away in open spaces.

"It's hard to control the behavior of smokers," he told reporters at a press conference Wednesday. "We can't expect smokers to stop just because of the World Expo."

Meanwhile, visitors said Wednesday that staying within the confines of smoking areas is too much of a hassle.

"I tried several of the lighters already, but none of them have worked," a visitor, who was hoping to light up a cigarette inside one of the smoking areas and who preferred not to give his name, told the Global Times Wednesday.

The man and his friend finally lit their smokes from a lighter borrowed from a cook, who works at a nearby restaurant, and happened to be on a smoke-break.

Organizers equipped the smoking areas inside the park with cigarette lighters on May 31 for World No Tobacco Day to prevent smokers from lighting up elsewhere, but non-smokers Wednesday complained the effort has not been enforced well.

Though fines exist for those caught smoking in non-smoking areas inside the park, so far, no one has been punished.