Sometimes You Just Gotta Spell It Out

Submitted by nefretiriii.

Trying To Smoke ‘Em Out Again

So tomorrow, the city government will attempt to restart the smoking ban that supposedly is already in effect, yet ignored by many Jakartans.In light of the recent alleged ban on Facebook, perhaps it is just simpler to ban everything instead of educating and reasoning. If people don’t understand why there is a ban, people wouldn’t care as much. Then again, all the reasoning in the world still hasn’t persuaded many Jakartans to wear helmets when riding motorcycles, either, except in the presence of police. Maybe there will be teams of police raiding smokers? Ha!

No Semoking Area

A small kiosk selling everything, to bottled gasoline (using old Coca-Cola bottles).

The Persecution Continues…

Jakarta is seemingly trying to transform itself into more of a non-smoking city, and thus somewhat persecuting the millions of smokers to smoke in designated areas. It has never been clear where the designated smoking areas are, since there have never been any signs put up to indicate as such.  Even if the bylaw – brought into law in 2005 – and widely known to cover public buildings and areas, government offices and such; apparently 3 years is not enough time to put up these signs. The people who were raided in the recent smokers raid were not entirely at fault – partly through ignorance, and partly by the fault of the property administrators failing to put up no-smoking signs, got them caught.Officials were caught smoking in government buildings, as the surveyor of these buildings often met with resistance to his surveys. The surveyor was even threatened when he took a picture of a government official smoking freely indoors. Seriously. You’d expect a more mature reaction from a government official – oh, well maybe not.These recent actions might be perceived as discriminative persecution for the tobacco-loving, but the point is the smoke – and the health risk – is indiscriminative. Then again, I guess all the carbon monoxide from the buses and trucks would kill us first.

Smoked Out

from The Jakarta Post

What a city! Now, not only that you can get arrested by dressing a bit sexy, you can even get arrested by smoking! The government did a much-applauded – by the anti-tobacco lobby, at least – sweeping of certain public areas and buildings and arrested 20 people. Yeah, action taken 2 years late, since the bylaw was passed in 2006.Porn might or might not be good for you, but smoking is definitely bad for you. But cigarette sales is good for the economy – maybe we can get people to start a new pastime; keep buying cigarettes but don’t smoke them?

I Don’t See This As A Successful Enterprise

Next week, the government and several NGOs will start raiding offices, malls and other public places for smokers. This is a renewed enforcement of the bylaw passed that prohibits smoking in designated public places.Hey, they’re going to smoke out the smokers!