We are finally approaching a nationwide ban on smoking in indoor places.

Xi JinPing is personally engaged in the matter as his wife is a spokesperson for the campaign. This time it looks very promising. Beijing will be the first city to enforce the law starting in June. Check the link for more on this:
www.csmonitor.com/[...]

Kunming will be the LAST city to enforce the law, probably starting in July 3015.

step in the right direction!

Too extreme - there's no reason why ALL bars should ban smoking.

Smoking should be banned in all public spaces. In fact, I wish smoking was just banned full stop. Its the most unhealthy, wasteful, pointless activity and also starts many fires. Smoking probably kills more people than anything.

The only problem with banning it completely, is that prohibition doesn't work. You just put market control into the hands of the criminals, which is already starting to happen with cigarettes due to high taxes.

What crap! I do not smoke but banning smoking is just stupid for China. I hope this idea is met with mass resistance. A smoker knows it is harmful but should have to right to do so.
For all you treehuggers out there worried about their health, why not whine about the horrendous air and water pollution which is 100X more damaging to your health.
You don't because your health is really not an issue to you. It is just the whining that makes you feel important.

A smoking ban is NOT the same as smoking prohibition. Nasty smokers can still satisfy their Freudean Oral fixation as long as it is NOT done in designated public places. Nasty smokers can smoke in the street, at home, in parks, just about anywhere they like except inside some stores, restaurants, hospitals, and other designated buildings.

Banning doesn't affect how many cigarettes smokers are going to smoke in one day. They are going to use the time they spend in the areas where smoking is allowed to refill their nicotine needs even if by any miracle this law is enforced until people completely change their habit of smoking in public areas.

@bucko, a huge number of people in China are oblivious to the fact that their cigarette smoke is harmful to others.

yeah, I know prohibition wouldn't stop people altogether, it would perhaps cut down the number of smokers, but like you say, it would be a boon to drug dealers & smugglers. As I've said before, there are many ways to reduce smoking, I've seen them work in my own lifetime in my own country. Also now e-cigarettes are starting to come in, let's hope the technology can be made suitably cheap (currently the tobacco companies are fighting to keep them expensive and even illegal in some places) so that the addicts can get their fix without the tar. I complain about pollution also, the two issues are not mutually exclusive!