Hong Kong  - Hi-tech smoking rooms may be allowed in Hong Kong bars when a total ban on cigarettes in places where food and drink are being served comes into effect in 2009, a news report said Monday.

Officials are examining a 40,000-US-dollar smoking room partly funded by British American Tobacco at a Hong Kong bar to see if exemptions should be granted to bars with hi-tech facilities.

The tobacco company claims the room removes and recycles smoke fumes safely and argues that it could save bars with high percentages of smoking customers from going bust.

However, the city's leading anti-smoking campaigner Anthony Hedley told Monday's South China Morning Post that allowing smoking rooms would be "nothing short of a scandal."

The Hong Kong government will make recommendations to legislators on whether or not to allow the smoking rooms in a report early in 2009, the newspaper said.

Smoking was banned in all public places in Hong Kong from January 2007 but a grace period of two and a half years was granted to some bars and nightclubs in the city of 6.9 million. (dpa)