Tokyo: eateries finally smoke-free

bentenmusume said:

I read that as applying to only the 84% of establishments with hired employees, as the ban does not apply to the others in the first place.

Click to expand...

Whoever wrote that did a bad job. I understand your confusion. Or maybe I am confused?

I found a Japanese source:


According to this, the ban does not apply to existing individually-owned establishments less than 100 square meters in seating area and with less than 50 million JPY in operating capital.

These places are allowed to remain smoking-acceptable at the owner's discretion provided signage is prominently displayed.

Maybe the old shitamachi dude wasn't breaking the law after all. In any case, he has my support.

I think the small family run establishments are still free to allow smoking even without an extra smoking box.

bentenmusume said:

According to this, the ban does not apply to existing individually-owned establishments less than 100 square meters in seating area and with less than 50 million JPY in operating capital.

Click to expand...

Thanks. I don't read kanji well enough to get anything out of the posted article.

But you have to ask yourself why they included operating capital in that. There is zero relevance so I suspect its just another noose or ploy of some kind. I have no idea what a typical figure for operating capital would be for such establishments. But I do know that land value estimates are crazy high in Tokyo.