The following section outlines your legal responsibilities and suggests the ways of dealing with smoking in your workplace. Passive smoking means to breathe in environmental tobacco smoke. Many major scientific reports have been conducted on the health effects of passive smoking. These reports have indicated that passive smoking is a significant health hazard. Many people find the smoke from a lit cigarette and the secondhand smoke exhaled by smokers irritating to their eyes and respiratory tract.
People often complain about the offensive and lingering smell left in a room inhabited by smokers.
For these reasons alone you should be considering implementing a non-smoking policy. If you continue to allow smoking in your workplace, you may be liable for prosecution under the Occupational Health and Safety Act 1983 . Employers may also be liable under common law with employees being able to sue their employer for contracting smoking-related illnesses. WorkCover NSW suggests that employers who provide separate smoking areas for their staff or clients are not fulfilling their obligations under the Occupational Health and Safety Act to provide a safe place of work and should be looking to phase these areas out. However, some workplaces such as restaurants and pubs have already phased in non-smoking policies by initially isolating smoking to particular areas.