Olympics: 100,000 Beijingers to serve as smoking ban inspectors
25/4/2008 18:04
More than 100,000 Beijingers would be tasked to check the enforcement of a
smoking ban at public facilities that would take effect since May 1 in the
Olympic host city of Beijing, a health official said.
More than 1,000 people
have been trained on the enforcement of the ban, while another 100,000 people
would be appointed as inspectors by all the city's enterprises and institutions,
said Deng Xiaohong, spokeswoman of the Beijing Health Bureau.
People caught
smoking in forbidden areas face a minor fine of 10 yuan (US$1.4) while
enterprises and institutions that violate the ban face fines between 1,000 yuan
and 5,000 yuan, according to Zheng yesterday.
Restaurants, bars and Internet
cafes have been exempted from the proposed smoking ban at public facilities in
response to concerns expressed by business owners, officials said earlier this
month.
These places will only be told to separate smoking and non-smoking
areas from May 1 as part of the new regulation.
Beijing had originally wanted
restaurants to keep 70 percent of their areas smoke-free, but the plan was
dropped amid restaurant owners' worries about potential business
decline.
From Oct. 1 last year, Beijing banned smoking in the city's 66,000
cabs, and imposed a fine of 100 yuan to 200 yuan (14 to US$28) on drivers if
caught smoking in cabs.
China has pledged itself to a non-smoking Olympics
and a Green Olympics, and this year's event will be the first non-smoking
Olympic Games after the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), of which
China is a signatory, went into effect in 2005.
About 350 million people in
China smoke, statistics from the Ministry of Health show. That is about 26
percent of the country's population and a third of the world's smoking
population. About 1 million people die from smoking-related diseases each
year.
Xinhua
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