New Zealand Legislation: Acts

6 Dedicated smoking rooms in hospital care institutions, residential disability care institutions, and rest homes

• (1) An employer may permit smoking by patients or residents of a workplace that is, or is part of, a hospital care institution, a residential disability care institution, or a rest home if—

  • (a) the smoking takes place only in 1 or more dedicated smoking rooms; and

  • (b) each dedicated smoking room is equipped with or connected to a mechanical ventilation system to which subsection (2) applies; and

  • (c) the employer has taken all reasonably practicable steps to minimise the escape of smoke from the dedicated smoking rooms into any part of the workplace that is not a dedicated smoking room; and

  • (d) for each dedicated smoking room, there is available for patients or residents who wish to socialise in a smokefree atmosphere an adequate equivalent room.

  (2) This subsection applies to a mechanical ventilation system with which a dedicated smoking room in a workplace is equipped if, and only if,—

  • (a) the system is so designed, installed, and operating that it takes air from the room to a place outside the workplace where any smoke the air may contain will not enter any part of the workplace, either—

    • (i) directly; or

    • (ii) through 1 or more other dedicated smoking rooms; and

  • (b) no part of the workplace that is not a dedicated smoking room is equipped with or connected to the system.

  (3) Subsection (1)—

  • (a) does not authorise an employer to permit a person who is not a patient or resident of the institution or home concerned to smoke in a dedicated smoking room; and

  • (b) does not authorise a person who is not a patient or resident of the institution or home concerned to smoke in a dedicated smoking room.

  Section 6: substituted, on 10 December 2004, by section 5 of the Smoke-free Environments Amendment Act 2003 (2003 No 127).