Although Japan has taken legal steps to build a smoke-free society, a few companies are investing in smoking areas to squeeze profits from among the declining number of tobacco users.

One of the areas consists of two adjacent rooms, about 8.1 square meters each, on the basement floor of a multi-tenant building near Tameike-sanno Station in Tokyo’s downtown Minato Ward.

The smoking area features a large air purifier and an air conditioner.

But for Sukima Department Inc., the company that manages the smoking lounge, the most important equipment there is the vending machine.

The free area opened in April, and office workers in business suits have been streaming into the lounge.

“I can smoke without hesitation here,” said a 40-year-old man as he took a puff. “It’s a real help for me because there aren’t many smoking areas around here.”

Sukima Department, based in Tokyo’s Chiyoda Ward, has set up 43 smoking areas inside multi-tenant buildings in the capital over the past five years. A total of 45,000 people use its facilities each day.

The company’s effort stems from its main business of installing and managing vending machines.

It started after Sukima Department President Shoji Yoshiya visited the site of a vending machine with exceptionally high sales levels.

He found an ashtray nearby, and saw a smoking customer consuming a drink from the machine.

Yoshiya surmised that smoking spots increase foot traffic, including potential vending machine customers.

After the company opened a 33-square-meter smoking room in Tokyo with a vending machine in 2019, about 1,500 people used the space daily.

Proceeds from the vending machine totaled 800,000 yen ($5,100) a month, a more than tenfold increase from the average.

In April 2020, the revised Health Promotion Law and a Tokyo ordinance took effect to prevent secondhand smoke, resulting in a reduction of city center places where smokers could light up.

Sukima Department continued setting up smoking rooms mainly in areas of multi-tenant buildings in Tokyo vacated by eateries during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“The number of smoking facilities is declining at a faster rate than the drop in smokers,” Yoshiya said. “When we think about this niche in the business, we can play for keeps.”

Although the business is in the black, profits are not necessarily large, the president said.

Initial expenses for a smoking lounge reach about 10 million yen, including costs for a powerful air purifier, an automatic locking system and other interior construction work.

Each lounge also requires several hundreds of thousands of yen monthly for upkeep, including rent, utilities and cleaning costs, he said.

Cosodo Inc., also based in Chiyoda Ward, entered the smoking-space business in June 2020. It was operating 64 smoking lounges in 18 municipalities in Tokyo, Kanagawa and Osaka prefectures at the end of April.

The company aims to run 159 smoking facilities by December.

Operational costs for the smoking rooms are covered by proceeds from vending machines, digital ad revenue and municipal government subsidies, according to the company.

The increase in such facilities also helps municipal governments prevent smoking in non-designated areas.

Tokyo’s Chiyoda and Minato wards each included about 500 million yen in their budgets this fiscal year to provide subsidies for installing smoking areas and supporting other tobacco-related projects for “the promotion of improved living environments” and “costs for pollution control.”

The Chiyoda Ward office provides up to 7 million yen in subsidies to support the installment of a smoking area, as well as up to 2.64 million yen for maintenance costs.

A total of 78 smoking areas have been covered under the subsidy program since 2009.

“It costs time and money for us to obtain a plot of land for a smoking area,” a ward official said. “But private companies can move things quickly.”

However, it is also difficult for private firms to open smoking facilities in prime locations because of high rents.

The ward intends to seek ways to install smoking areas in a balanced manner, the official added.