Jail cells and painted squares: Taipei smoking areas leave critics fired up

Jail cells and painted squares: Taipei smoking areas leave critics fired up

2026-08-28

Talk about a smoking hot controversy! Taipei is cracking down on smoking, but some of the city’s designated smoking areas are leaving people pretty fired up. One is located at a 240-year-old historic landmark, raising the question: is the city protecting its heritage, or playing with fire? From smoking spots that are little more than painted squares, to a jail cell replica that got pulled down in less than a month, Taipei’s smoking areas are going up in smoke.

The Lin An Tai Historical House and Museum is a perfectly preserved traditional house in the Min-nan courtyard style. Located in Taipei’s Zhongshan District, it’s free to enter. The architecture is stunning, and so is the fact that the smoking room is inside the landmark.

Chen Yao-chi
FTV reporter
The 240-year-old house recently got a new addition, a smoking area delimited by potted plants. Though most of the building is made in bricks and tiles, the doors and pillars are wooden. Is Taipei playing with fire?

Visitor
Touring landmark
Putting the smoking area in the historic site is questionable. There’s so much wood.

Visitor
Touring landmark
Designating smoking areas is good. Nobody wants to inhale second-hand smoke. But it should be outside, in a separate structure.

Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an says regular reviews will be conducted. The city now has 267 smoking areas, many of which are getting dragged through the inferno.

Chou Jung-hsuan
FTV reporter
Taipei is investing big in its popular smoke-free city policy. But can you find the smoking area in this car park? No? Look harder!

The smoking area at this car park is simply a square painted on the floor. No walls, no shed. Nothing to contain the smoke. The local councilor offered her blunt opinion on the design.

Hung Wan-jen
Taipei City Councilor (DPP)
It’s beyond the pale. You draw a square on the ground, just like any other parking spot and tell people it’s a smoking area and ask everyone to just go and stand there.

At this other parking lot, at least the area has a glass walls on three sides, and for some reason, three handrails. Online, critics were fuming, saying “So that’s where the MRT handrails went!”

Puma Shen
Taipei Mayoral Candidate (DPP)
The Taipei City Government has put out ideas, but they lack planning and execution. Everyone’s just guessing what the higher-ups want. From the get go, it’s unclear which unit should be in charge of what. That’s how we ended up here. They can’t even provide data when you ask them for it.

The most egregious example, might be the prison-core smoking area set up in Gongguan, with a price tag of NT$140,000. The bars aren’t just reminiscent of a jail, they also don’t block smoke in any way. The fence didn’t last a month, and has been taken down. What a waste.

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