Even before a draft law is submitted to ban smoking in public places, members of the Riyadh Municipal Council are endorsing a plan to penalize smokers who light up in public places. A meeting between the secretary general and members of the Philanthropic Anti-Smoking Society and the members of the Municipal Council concluded that it is necessary to re-enact legislations and regulations issued to ban smoking in workplaces, Arabic daily Alsharq Al-Awsat reported. Based on the latest official statistics, there are more than six million male and female smokers in Saudi Arabia. Those who attended the meeting said that they would declare “an open war” on smoking and on popular cafes that breach the ban. They threatened to use the edict pronounced by the Council of Senior Ulema to proscribe smoking as a way to curb the activities of local tobacco agents. Saudi Arabia's cigarette import bill exceeds SR1.5 billion per year. Tareq Al-Qasabi, vice chairman of Riyadh's Municipal Council said curbing smoking in the Kingdom needs to be a community-based effort. Suleiman Al-Sabi, general secretary of the Anti-Smoking Society, indicated that a survey conducted by the Society revealed that 95% of Al-Hair prison inmates who were caught smoking hashish were cigarette smokers early in life. As for popular cafes, activists called for their relocation outside Riyadh city limits. Dr. Abdulaziz Al-Omari, member of Riyadh's Municipal Council, offered a proposal not to renew the licenses of these cafes, which was endorsed unanimously by the municipal court Mixed tobaccos used in ‘shisha' will also be affected under the smoking restrictions as well as a special type of tobacco known as jurak.