The Beijing environmental protection authority drafted air pollution prevention and control regulations, which include a ban on outdoor barbecue stalls in urban areas.

Before banning outdoor barbecue stalls, the environmental watchdog has to tell the public what is the activity's real harm to air quality. Otherwise, it will be very difficult to win support from the public, says an article in the 21st Century Business Herald. Excerpts:

The hazy air that shrouded Beijing on 24 out of 31 days in January made the city's environmental protection bureau more responsive to the public's appeals to take measures to clean the air.

Outdoor barbecue stalls certainly generate air pollutants. But many citizens view barbecued food and beer as a hobby in the summer in many places.

Many cities have actually already banned outdoor barbecue stalls years ago, such as Jinan, Zibo and Linyi in Shandong province, Hefei in Anhui province, and Wuhan in Hubei province. But the real effects of the ban proved so lackluster that barbecue stalls are now as popular as before.

Beijing banned outdoor barbecue stalls as early as September 2000. And there are some laws and regulations in the fields of food safety and air-pollution control and prevention blocking open-air barbecuing.

However, 13 years on, the outdoor barbecue stalls are still there. To ensure that this new regulation does not become another vain effort, the environmental authority should inform the public about the environmental harm of open-air barbecues. If authorities can convince the people, the issue will be finally solved.