It was about noon time on a Monday, several days ago. We had just finished watching our kids perform at school and wanted to grab some lunch. After strolling Cilandak Town Square (Citos) for a while, we decided to have lunch at Mango. We were seated inside, near the drinks counter. We completed our orders and soon after the waiter brought us our drinks.

All of a sudden, two people who were sitting right next to my kids started lighting up their cigarettes. Concern about my kids, I called the waiter and asked to be moved somewhere else that’s a non smoking area. The waiter replied “This is a smoking restaurant. In fact the whole ground level of Citos is designated a smoking area. The only non-smoking area is on the upper floor.“

The whole ground level of Citos is designated as smoking area ? Since when ? Not wanting to prolong the arguments, I got up to the cashier’s area and told them that we’re leaving and paid for the drinks that have been served. (To their credit, they also didn’t make a big fuss about us canceling the orders we have placed). As I was paying, I asked the lady at the cash register about when Mango turned into a smoking restaurant. “We used to have a smoking section and a non smoking section, but we decided to make them all smoking now” was her reply. She didn’t elaborate further and I just wanted to get out of that place as soon as possible.

We left the place and went to the second floor and finally had our lunch there.

Have I missed something ? Is there really a special license for certain public areas to be designated smoking and not considered a violation of Peraturan Daerah Provinsi Daerah Khusus Ibukota Jakarta, Nomor 2 tahun 2005, pasal 13 which says the following:

Pasal 13
(1) Tempat umum, sarana kesehatan, tempat kerja dan tempat yang secara spesifik sebagai tempat proses belajar mengajar, arena kegiatan anak, tempat ibadah dan
angkutan umum dinyatakan sebagai kawasan dilarang merokok.
(2) Pimpinan atau penanggungjawab tempat umum dan tempat kerja harus menyediakan tempat khusus untuk merokok serta menyediakan alat penghisap
udara sehingga tidak mengganggu kesehatan bagi yang tidak merokok.
(3) Dalam angkutan umum dapat disediakan tempat khusus untuk merokok dengan
ketentuan:
a. lokasi tempat khusus untuk merokok terpisah secara fisik/tidak bercampur
dengan kawasan tanpa rokok pada angkutan umum yang sama;
b. dalam tempat khusus untuk merokok harus dilengkapi alat penghisap udara atau memiliki sistem sirkulasi udara yang memenuhi persyaratan yang ditetapkan Peraturan Perundang-undangan yang berlaku.

Discipline and the will to enforce laws are lacking badly in this country and I suppose it’s not going to be fixed soon. Smoking in public areas is not that big of an issue compared to other more serious violation of the law, but it is nevertheless another indication of laws being broken and nobody doing anything about it.

By the way, if you look at the whole Peraturan Daerah, it contains other laws that are basically unenforceable. They are all good laws and if we were to follow through with it we will have much cleaner air. Perhaps in 20 to 30 years it will become a reality ?