Liu Minxia

    mllmx@msn.com

    SHENZHEN’S law enforcement will invite media reporters to join them for spot checks on entertainment and leisure venues, which became included in Shenzhen’s smoking ban Jan. 1 after a more-than-two-year grace period for these venues ended.

    In the past two months, law enforcement officers have raided some bars, KTV clubs, teahouses, and massage and bath parlors to persuade and pressure them into implementing the ban, while the city’s hospital for chronic disease control and prevention gave training classes to managers of more than 2,000 of the newly included venues to help them implement the ban, said Zhuang Runsen, deputy head of the Shenzhen Tobacco Control Association.

    Starting May 1, these venues will receive penalties if they violate the ban, according to Zhuang. Shenzhen’s smoking ban, said to be the harshest of its kind in China, stipulates fines between 50 yuan (US$7.27) and 500 yuan for individual violators and up to 30,000 yuan for operators of nonsmoking venues who fail to comply with the ban.

    By the end of January, the city had fined more than 41,000 individual smokers, totaling roughly 2.1 million yuan, as well as eight venue operators, totaling 210,000 yuan, the tobacco control association said yesterday. The city issued its first penalty March 8, 2014, after enacting the partial smoking ban March 1, 2014.

    Among all types of indoor places, entertainment and leisure venues are most plagued with smoking, according to Zhuang. A high proportion of visitors to these venues and even the managers are smokers.

    The city’s health commission is leading the ban’s implementation with help from 21 other government departments, including urban management, market supervision, and police.

    Roughly 23 percent of Shenzhen residents above the age of 15 smoke, compared with 18.3 percent in 2014, the latest survey by the tobacco control association showed. More than 6 million Shenzhen residents are secondhand smokers, the survey found.

    Residents can call 12345, or contact the WeChat account “szkyws,” to report smokers in nonsmoking places and operators who fail to implement the law.