The Barbados Hotel & Tourism Association (BHTA) is seeking clarification on how a ban on public smoking will impact the hotel sector.BHTA executive vice-president Sue Springer admitted yesterday that despite hearing the definition of “public places” she was still in the dark about how hotels would be classified for the ban. She expressed her concern at the Accra Hotel & Beach Resort, where Minister of Health Donville Inniss announced the ban, due to come into effect from October 1.Media bosses, senior Ministry of Health officials and several private company leaders attended the meeting. Senior assistant general secretary of the Barbados Workers’ Union, Orlando Scott, told the gathering that smoking was a problem in the hotel sector. “One of the difficulties we have in the trade union movement is . . . with smoking, second-hand smoke, in the hotel industry,” he remarked. He said workers wanted to know what the union and Government were doing to protect them from the effects of second-hand smoke.“I do believe that we are going to get some problems because . . . there are still going to be visitors to the country who will come to the hotels and who will believe that because they are paying their money, as they all say, they can smoke.”Scott underscored the importance of public education programmes on smoking in general and the ban in particular, saying: “We need to make some serious interventions with respect to the hotels because we’re going to have problems.”Hotels, bars, rum-shops, restaurants, Government offices and building of national significance, including museums and libraries, will be affected by the ban, according to the wording of the drafted legislation soon to reach Parliament.
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