Zhang Yang

nicolezyyy@163.com

PARKS in Shenzhen have been urged to set up smoking areas near lavatories since all parks in the city are nonsmoking venues according to the city’s smoking ban.

Two people were caught smoking in Donghu Park when it was raided by law enforcers yesterday morning during spot checks joined by reporters and volunteers from the Shenzhen Tobacco Control Association. Each of the smokers was fined 50 yuan (US$7.44) for violating the smoking ban.

Although there are no-smoking signs at the entrance of the park, one smoker, who is a staff member of a film crew, said he didn’t know that smoking was prohibited in the park. He was smoking while the crew was shooting a film with a cast of schoolchildren in the park.

Another smoker who was caught while riding a bicycle in the park hemmed and hawed when asked if he knew about the nonsmoking rule in the park. “I’ve been visiting this park for over 30 years and I’ve seen so many people smoking here,” he said.

Cao Huibo, a law enforcer with the urban management bureau in Luohu District, said many visitors to the park’s fishing area were accustomed to smoking while sitting by the side of the lake killing time.

Under Shenzhen’s smoking ban, people can only smoke in smoking areas in the city’s parks. However, Cao said the rules didn’t specify how many smoking areas should be set up in a park and there isn’t a smoking area in Donghu Park, making it a wholly nonsmoking park, even though it occupies 233 hectares.

Gao Wenhui, head of the Shenzhen Tobacco Control Association, said it would be challenging to fully implement the smoking ban if there aren’t any smoking areas in a park as large as Donghu Park. He suggested that all of the parks in Shenzhen set up smoking areas near the lavatories and put up no-smoking signs in crowded areas.

“Additionally, patrollers should be deployed to discourage residents from smoking in nonsmoking areas in the parks,” he said.

Currently, there are around 900 parks in Shenzhen, according to Lin Runhua, head of the city’s urban management bureau’s law enforcement team. But Lin said she couldn’t immediately provide statistics about how many parks have set up smoking areas.

Shenzhen’s smoking ban, said to be the harshest of its kind in China, stipulates fines of up to 500 yuan for individual violators and fines of up to 30,000 yuan for operators of nonsmoking venues that fail to comply with the ban, which was extended to all indoor areas Jan. 1 this year.

Three monthlong operations were launched by city authorities in March, May and June to conduct spot checks and punish smoking-ban violators in leisure venues, restaurants, office buildings, hospitals and schools citywide.

During the three operations, 56 out of the 121 venues that were checked were given warnings, while 94 smokers were fined a total of 4,700 yuan for violating the smoking ban. Yesterday’s anti-smoking raid marked the beginning of the fourth operation, which will continue checking for smoking-ban violations in parks and near the exits of Metro stations across the city until the end of the month.