THE Malaysian Insight reported last week that one in five coffee shops in Malaysia has closed down in the six months since the government implemented the smoking ban, with the Restaurant Owners’ Association saying that they “were unable to take the losses from customers who stopped patronising their premises due to the ban”.

This has now been echoed by the Malaysian Muslim Restaurant Owners’ Association in a piece today.

In last week’s story, a particular cafe in Subang Jaya called Cosans Coffee was highlighted. The cafe was bringing down the shutters on its operations, apparently due to the losses that it was taking from losing customers to the smoking ban. Owner John Ee Hong said that he used to make RM50,000 a month but had only been able to make RM15,000 a month since the ban.

While one sympathises with the coffee-shop owner and his loss of business, it is with all due respect that I need to make some strong and clear clarifications to ensure that a true picture of the issues is clear to the public.

A colleague of mine made a trip to Cosans Coffee and spent a significant amount of time patronising the business. Here’s the true picture: Cosans Coffee has two separate indoor and outdoor sections. The indoor section has tables that can seat about 50-odd patrons and is air-conditioned while the outdoor section has tables that can seat about 15 people and is, naturally, not air-conditioned. From the layout, one could surmise that less than a third of the cafe’s seating area is outdoors.

Here is where it gets interesting: the smoking regulation on all eateries, including air-conditioned and non-air-conditioned ones, only came into effect on January 1, while under the Control of Tobacco Product Regulations 2004, smoking in air-conditioned eateries has already been prohibited.    

For Cosans Coffee, which started operating in 2013, to allege a loss of monthly income from RM50,000 to RM15,000, the following may have been going on: they may have been flouting existing regulations that existed before the current smoking ban in terms of allowing smoking to go on within air-conditioned areas. If not, in no case would sales revenue from 15 seats in the outdoor sections of the cafe have been enough to generate RM50,000 a month otherwise. The other theory is that these sales figures are not as accurate as they are being made out to be.

Consider also other factors that may be playing a larger role in causing the drop in business for coffee shops such as Cosans Coffee. One that comes to mind is the rise of the “bubble tea” phenomenon. Subang Jaya itself is lined with many of these outlets, and these outlets are in turn lined by long, snaking rows of customers queuing to get their bubble tea fix. Perhaps this is where the customers are moving to? This would have nothing to do with the smoking ban. In fact, the bubble tea outlets stand contrary to what some coffee-shop owners are alleging as they are eateries flourishing despite the ban.

Similarly, many mamak restaurants have shifted to being not only completely smoke-free but have also stopped selling cigarettes on their premises. Contrary to what is being alleged by these associations, the big chains, including renowned Nasi Kandar restaurants, have not seen a dip in business at all, and continue to be packed at all hours of the day and night.

There is an additional interesting insight to be shared about the Cosans Coffee experience, which, from in-depth examination, seems to form the basis of complaints from coffee-shop owners and their associations. From my IIUM colleague, Prof Mohamad Haniki Nik Mohamed’s research, 70% of retailers, including coffee-shop owners, are provided clear financial incentives to sell cigarettes from the tobacco industry. This forms a large part of their businesses’ profits. This is why they are unhappy with the smoking ban extension to all eateries. They lose their profits derived from cigarette sales. My question to coffee-shop owners and other restauranteurs complaining is this: if you are a food and beverage outlet, why are you depending on cigarette sales for your revenue? If so, why don’t you call yourself a “cigarette bar” or “cigarette lounge”?

The coffee-shop industry and their counterparts have been making quite a huff and puff (pun intended) about the loss of revenue due to the smoking ban. The veracity of their claims is questionable in terms of loss of revenue. As such, I now even question their claim of how “one in every five coffee shops in Malaysia have shut down in the past six months” or even “30% decline in business”, as alleged by the Muslim Restaurant Owners’ Association.  Are these claims even verified? Or are Malaysians being sold fake news purported by these associations to gain sympathy?

Stop blowing smoke in our eyes about smoke-free eateries. Malaysians are not that easily blinded. – July 25, 2019.

* Dr Murallitharan M. is a public health physician, National Cancer Society of Malaysia director and Malaysian Council for Tobacco Control treasurer-general.

* This is the opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insight. Article may be edited for brevity and clarity.