Cigarette butts will be considered “strong evidence” of a possible breach under a proposed construction site smoking ban, Hong Kong’s labour chief has said, even as he sought to reassure contractors that preventive measures could shield them from the maximum HK$400,000 (US$51,070) fine.
Secretary for Labour and Welfare Chris Sun Yuk-Han revealed further details about the ban in an interview with the South China Morning Post held amid an inquiry into the deadly Wang Fuk Court blaze, which heard that a lit cigarette likely sparked the fire after igniting flammable materials in a lightwell.
It also emerged at the inquiry that no prosecutions were initiated despite 17 checks at the estate undergoing renovation, as Labour Department inspectors were unable to catch smokers in the act or trace the origins of the cigarette butts found there.
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Sun also outlined his remaining priorities for the final year of the current term, including the introduction of a statutory injury compensation mechanism for online platform delivery workers and reforms to a manpower retraining body to address the impact of artificial intelligence (AI).
Touching on his proposed ban on smoking at construction sites, he said: “For any contractor, if there are a lot of cigarette butts at the time of inspection, that by itself is going to be very strong evidence for us to take further action.
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“We encourage them to install [surveillance cameras], so they can catch whoever is smoking [on] the site and then [we] can make use of the images together with other means and see if we can prosecute those contraveners. But of course, eventually we have to make sure that there is a clear case being established.”