2,774 smoking offenders prosecuted this year

A total of 40,722 smoking offenders have been prosecuted by tobacco control law enforcement officers between the beginning of January 2012, when the city’s Tobacco Prevention and Control Law first came into effect, and April 30 of 2017.

The Health Bureau (SSM) issued a statement this week announcing that enforcement officers inspected several areas where smoking is prohibited across Macau 1,400,031 times, which amounts to 719 daily inspections on average.

From the beginning of this year until the end of last month, officers conducted 109,493 inspections in different locations across the city, representing an average of 912 examinations per day. In total, 2,774 prosecutions were issued during these four months, specifically 2,770 smoking behaviors that violated the law, and four prosecutions of people who sold tobacco products which did not comply with the information on their labels.

Around 95 percent of offenders were male, against 5 percent female, representing 2,601 men and 169 women.

Most of the offenders (53.5 percent) were Macau residents (1,481), over 1,000 (1,134) were tourists, and the remaining 5.6 percent were non-resident workers (155). In 68 cases, police forces were involved.

During the same time frame, the Health Bureau and the Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau conducted 210 tobacco-related inspections in casinos resulting in 216 offenses, of which 202 (93.5 percent) were male and 14 (6.5 percent) were female. 181 (83.8 percent) were tourists, 34 (15.7 percent) were Macau residents and one (0.5 percent) was a non-resident worker.