Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2011, 8 1531 estimate how the convenience sample would bias the results. Thus, any interpretation relating the study results to all restaurants and bars in any of or all the five cities or in China should be cautious. Another limitation of the study is that for some restaurants and bars, especially those big ones, their managers other than their owners were interviewed, and no information was collected on whether a questionnaire was answered by an owner or a manager. Though the managers contacted the owners to get authorization to participate in the survey, their answers to the questionnaires might be quite different from the owners. And managers might not have the authority to decide to prohibit or restrict smoking voluntarily in their venues. However, managers’ support and willingness to do so may indicate likely compliance of any smoking prohibition or restriction in their venues. Furthermore, there was potential social desirability bias, which might lead to over-reporting of knowledge on SHS hazards, existing voluntary smoking restrictions and support for smoking bans, and we were not able to estimate the scope of this bias. However, if findings from this study were attributed to social desirability bias to a great extent, it indicates that smoke-free hospitality venues are favored by the society to a noticeable extent; and if the social desirability was not significant to bias the findings, then the owners’ support presented significant evidence of feasibility to impose governmental restrictions in hospitality venues. In either case, it indicated the necessity of facilitating smoking bans in hospitality venues in China in aspect of social readiness. 6. Conclusions Though restaurant and bar owners and managers have limited knowledge on specific health hazards of SHS, many of them support government regulation of smoking in public places. Fewer, however, are willing to prohibit or restrict smoking in their own establishment. Governmental regulation of smoking in hospitality venues is necessary to reduce health problems related to secondhand smoke in China. To garner adequate support for these policies at the national level, it may be necessary to complement international studies with China-specific evidence that smoking bans will not reduce hospitality revenues. It is also important to educate people so they understand that, even with better ventilation in restaurants and bars, and with smoking restricted to designated areas, substantial health risks from secondhand smoke remain, and include not only lung cancer but also asthma and heart disease. Acknowledgments This project was supported by a special grant from the Chinese CDC on FCTC implementation for 2007, and by a grant from the Roswell Park Transdisciplinary Tobacco Use Research Center (P50 CA111236). S Katharine Hammond receives funding from the Flight Attendants Medical Research Institute. The authors would like to thank the local CDC and health institution representatives in each city for their help on subject recruitment and data collection.