Almost 180,000 smoke control inspections in six months

The Health Bureau (SSM) inspectors have performed a total of 179,711 inspections during the first six months of this year following the enforcement of the Smoking Prevention and Control law.

According to an SSM statement, the figure represents a 5.5 percent (+9,439) growth in the number of inspections, which in turn represents a daily average of 993 inspections.

The bureau said that the registered growth is related to the inspectors’ implementation of new situational strategies.

During the period between January 1 and June 30, the inspections resulted in a total of 2,678 accusations, including 2,668 cases of illegal smoking, six cases of illegal labeling of tobacco products and four cases of illegal sales of tobacco products.

Despite the increase in inspections, the number of accusations has been reduced to 1,262 cases, with men continuing to be responsible for the majority of cases (93 percent).

Most of the fines are still applied to tourists (62.1 percent), while locals are also responsible for a significant share (34.8 percent).

In 77 cases, the SSM noted that police had been called in to deal with the offenders that refused to accept the charges. The fines for 81.8 percent of the cases have been settled.

Regarding the cases by type of establishment, the areas recording the highest number of incidents were the casinos (29.2 percent), followed by parks, gardens and recreation areas (12.4 percent). The bus and taxi stands came in third (10 percent).

The SSM noted that until June 30, it had received a total of 68 requests from 11 casinos in the territory requesting the installation of smoking rooms. Only one of these has been approved, following a joint inspection with the Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau.  RM