Dubai’s shopping malls are setting up indoor designated smoking areas to help enforce the emirate’s new smoking regulations for public places coming into effect at the end of next week.

The Dubai Shopping Malls Group (DSMG) has had several meetings with Dubai Municipality to discuss the strict implementation of the new regulations, UAE daily Khaleej Times reported today.

“From September 15, people will not be able to smoke at any place except the ones designated for smoking inside the shopping malls,” DSMG chairman Eisa Adam Ibrahim told the newspaper.

"Tomorrow will be the launch of gradual steps to regulate smoking in public areas," Zohoor Al-Sabbagh, head of the clinic and community health section at Dubai Municipality, said on Tuesday.

Dubai Municipality and DSMG are set to meet again this week to finalise enforcement details before the smoking ban due date.

However, the designated smoking areas and sheesha places will be exempted from the regulation, Zuhoor Al Sabbagh, the Head of Clinics and Medical Services Section at the Public Health Department of the Dubai Municipality told Khaleej Times.

“The fines would be introduced in a later phase starting next year," she added.

However, anyone smoking in an undesignated area inside the malls will be immediately asked to leave, municipal officials have said.

The move is the second phase of Dubai’s smoking ban, following new regulations on May 31 to ban smoking in government buildings, schools and colleges as the first step in a plan to stub out smoking across the Gulf Arab trade and tourism hub by the end of 2009.

The third phase is set to start on November 15 and will include a blanket ban on smoking in educational establishments, hair salons, health clubs, internet cafes, foodcourts and offices.