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April 10th, 2012:

Remote control roof on smoking area lands pub in court

Apr 10th, 2012
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Wexfordpeople.ie

A PUB smoking area is not a smoking area for the purposes of complying with the law when it has four walls and a roof. But Gorey District Court was told that it may fit the bill if only 50 per cent of the roof is in place.

The finer points of the legislation were teased out last week during the case taken by the health service against Demmac Inns, the firm which runs the Castle Bar on Enniscorthy’s Castle Hill. The case was brought after the environmental health officer called to the premises on August 15 last, when the smoking area was totally enclosed.

Demmac’s solicitor Julie Breen told Judge Gerard Haughton that her clients had spent €5,000 installing a retractable roof operated by remote control. On the date of the offence, rain was falling and the roof was left fully closed. A fine of €500 (HKD 5,300) was handed down and Demmac was ordered to pay prosecution costs of €800 (HKD 9,600).

http://www.wexfordpeople.ie/news/remote-control-roof-on-smoking-area-lands-pub-in-court-3071402.html?service=Print

Costa Rican Authorities To Get Tough On Smokers Starting This Week

Apr 10th, 2012
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http://www.insidecostarica.com/dailynews/2012/april/09/costarica12040909.htm

10 April 2012

Although the regulations and enforcements, nor where to pay the fines, is in place the Ministerio de Salud (Ministry of Health) says it will start this week visiting bars and restaurants around the country to ensure compliance to the Ley de Antitabaco.

“From next week we will visit these places, the Minister also informed by the regional establishments must remove any sign that indicates smoking area” said Roberto Castro, Director of Surveillance of the Ministry of Health, to the press last week.

With the move the smoking ban comes into its full rigor this week, and that all establishments are aware, if not met will take the necessary measures.

The sanctions against bars and restaurants, for example, can be a fine and include the suspension of the operating permit.

If a bar or restaurant loses their “permiso sanitario” it will then have to then initiate the complicated of getting it back.

Reports sent in to Inside Costa Rica indicate that the local municipal police in San José last week visited a number of bars and restaurants and issued warnings.

In many places smokers are being asked to go outside to feed their habit, some having to take to the sidewalks of the public streets as the debate centres on whether a parking lot is deemed part of the bar or restaurant.

In malls, like Multiplaza in Escazú, an ICR reader informs that he was asked by a security guard to snuff out while sitting  in his vehicle, parked in the mall’s parking lot, while smoking. “Where am I to go, to the pista?”, was the rhetorical question.

One of the requirements under the law is that establishments post anti-smoking signs.

WHO centre to help smokers quit is launched

Apr 10th, 2012
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SCMP

Agency’s first collaborative centre to share ideas on kicking tobacco habit builds on city’s success
Lo Wei 
Apr 10, 2012

Medical professionals from across the region will learn the lessons of Hong Kong’s success in getting smokers to quit the habit with the launch of the World Health Organisation’s first international centre for collaboration on smoking cessation.

Hong Kong was chosen to host the centre, which brings together experts from different countries to discuss ideas, in recognition of the government’s success in helping smokers quit, said Dr Shin Young-soo, the WHO’s regional director for the Western Pacific.

“The WHO has to learn from the Hong Kong government,” Shin said. “We look forward to sharing good practice and research to save lives from the tobacco epidemic.”

WHO director general Dr Margaret Chan Fung Fu- chun, a former director of health for the city, last October praised Hong Kong’s work in the fight against tobacco, saying it had done “extremely well”.

Over the past two years, the Department of Health has trained more than 100 health care professionals from Hong Kong, Macau and the mainland in helping smokers to quit.

The new centre will train 100 doctors, nurses and social workers each year from across China and Southeast Asia, said Dr Raymond Ho Lei-ming, head of the department’s Tobacco Control Office.

One of its key targets will be to improve help for smokers on the mainland, after a survey there showed that nine out of 10 mainland smokers who tried to quit in the last year found no help available.

The new centre will also co-ordinate smoking cessation services provided locally by public hospitals, medical schools and non-governmental organisations.

The centre in Wan Chai is the fourth collaboration centre on tobacco control in the region, with others covering different areas of expertise already up and running in Japan, Singapore and on the mainland.

A mix of higher taxes, social factors and an effective anti-tobacco campaign has seen the share of Hongkongers aged 15 and above who smoke drop to 11.1 per cent, down from 23 per cent in 1982 – one of the lowest rates in the developed world.\

wei.lo@scmp.com

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