How we check every smoking area

Trust levels

Official smoking area

Listed by the ward or city on an official page, map or open data file, and still there at our last check.

Confirmed by the operator

Published by the operator (a station, a mall, a hotel, a smoking-lounge chain) on its own website.

Checked on site

Confirmed on site: three visitors within 100 m agreed in the last 30 days.

Not verified

A single unconfirmed source, such as a visitor's report. Hidden by default, shown greyed when you ask for it.

Removed

Gone from the official source, or reported closed by three visitors on site within 14 days. Hidden, but kept in the history.

Sources

We use the official pages and open data of wards and cities, operators' websites, field checks and visitors on site. OpenStreetMap only gives leads that we check elsewhere.

We never copy Google Maps or other smoking-area maps. Each place keeps the exact excerpt of its source, the link and the date we read it: you can check it yourself.

What we don't know

When a source doesn't say something (hours, type, heated tobacco, seats), we write “not stated”. We never guess. A place with unknown hours stays in “Open now” with a “?” so it doesn't disappear.

Names and addresses are shown in Japanese exactly as officially published, so you can show them to a passer-by.

Freshness

A coloured dot shows when a place was last confirmed: green this week, orange this month, grey for longer. After 90 days without confirmation we check it again; after 180 days its level goes down by one.

Visitors' answers

Anyone can answer “still here?” or “open now?” without an account. An answer counts fully within 100 m of the place, less from further away. One answer per question, place and phone every 12 hours, and 30 a day. Each phone has a reliability score that rises when others confirm its answers.

Hours and details sent by visitors are checked before they appear. When visitors and an official source disagree, a person reviews it: nothing is overwritten automatically.

Local rules

The rule banner comes from ward and city regulations, with a link to the official text and the date we checked it. It is indicative: the official rule prevails. Rules are checked again every 30 days.

Privacy

No account. Your position stays on your phone: we only receive the distance to a place when you answer about it. Your phone's random identifier is stored only as a hash. No advertising trackers.