Kim­i­tria Gray

Cig­a­rette smok­ing is not on­ly dan­ger­ous to the health of the smok­er, but al­so dan­ger­ous to per­sons in­hal­ing the smoke from some­one smok­ing around them. The man­age­ment of to­bac­co smok­ing is a crit­i­cal pub­lic health mat­ter. The To­bac­co Con­trol Act No 15 of 2009 is de­signed to pro­tect cit­i­zens from ex­po­sure to to­bac­co smoke, pre­vent smok­ing by young peo­ple, to re­strict pro­mo­tion­al ac­tiv­i­ties by to­bac­co man­u­fac­tur­ers, im­prove pub­lic aware­ness of the dan­gers of to­bac­co use, and en­sure that con­sumers are pro­vid­ed with enough in­for­ma­tion to make more in­formed de­ci­sions on us­ing to­bac­co prod­ucts.

Sec­tions in force

The act has been par­tial­ly pro­claimed by Le­gal No­tice 24 of 2010. The sec­tions cur­rent­ly in force are Sec­tions 1 to 9 and sec­tions 12 to 22. This ar­ti­cle deals specif­i­cal­ly with the pro­hi­bi­tions on smok­ing in par­tic­u­lar ar­eas.

No smok­ing in cer­tain ar­eas

Sec­tion 12 of the act pro­hibits smok­ing or hold­ing a lit to­bac­co prod­uct in any en­closed pub­lic place, en­closed work­place or pub­lic con­veyance."To­bac­co prod­uct" is de­fined as any prod­uct made en­tire­ly or even part­ly of the leaf of the to­bac­co as raw ma­te­r­i­al. A cig­a­rette is a to­bac­co prod­uct.A "pub­lic place" means any place ac­ces­si­ble to the gen­er­al pub­lic or place of shared use de­spite who owns the place or who has a right of ac­cess to the place. A "pub­lic con­veyance" means any form of trans­porta­tion that car­ries pas­sen­gers for hire. A maxi taxi is an ex­am­ple of a pub­lic con­veyance.

"Work­place" is a place used by per­sons dur­ing their em­ploy­ment and in­cludes ve­hi­cles, and any area used dur­ing the course of em­ploy­ment but does not in­clude pri­vate res­i­dences or pri­vate ve­hi­cles. A place is "en­closed" if it is cov­ered by a roof com­plete­ly or sub­stan­tial­ly. A place is sub­stan­tial­ly en­closed if more than fifty per cent of it is closed to the out­side air.

Smok­ing is not on­ly the in­hal­ing and ex­hal­ing from a lit to­bac­co prod­uct, like a cig­a­rette. Smok­ing in­cludes han­dling of an ig­nit­ed or heat­ed to­bac­co prod­uct. So if a per­son sim­ply has a lit cig­a­rette in his hand, he com­mits an of­fence un­der the act.

The fol­low­ing is a list of ar­eas where smok­ing is not al­lowed:

�2 Pub­lic trans­porta­tion ter­mi­nals

�2 Work­places

�2 Re­tail es­tab­lish­ments in­clud­ing bars, restau­rants and shop­ping malls

�2 Clubs

�2 Cin­e­mas

�2 Con­cert halls

�2 Sports fa­cil­i­ties

�2 Pool and bin­go halls

�2 Pub­licly owned fa­cil­i­ties rent­ed out for events

�2 Any oth­er fa­cil­i­ties ac­ces­si­ble to the pub­lic

Penal­ty

A per­son who smokes in places re­strict­ed in this act is li­able to a fine of $10,000 and to im­pris­on­ment for six months. Where a per­son com­mits the of­fence of smok­ing in a re­strict­ed place, the man­ag­er, own­er or lessee of that place who au­tho­ris­es or al­lows the of­fence is al­so guilty of the of­fence and faces the same fine.

En­force­ment

The act is to be en­forced to a large ex­tent by the au­tho­rised of­fi­cers un­der the act, name­ly, po­lice of­fi­cers, cus­toms of­fi­cers and pub­lic health in­spec­tors.

This col­umn is not le­gal ad­vice. If you have a le­gal prob­lem, you should con­sult a le­gal ad­vis­er.