Last Updated on 2016-06-23 , 12:28 pm
Some of you readers smoke, perhaps at home, or in public, or maybe even both. While it may have been easy to smoke anywhere and everywhere you wanted in the past, there have been some new rules put in place with regards to smoking, mostly prohibiting the activity to be done in public areas.
While previously, over 32000 places in Singapore have been designated as smoke-free areas, another 400 parks managed by JTC Corporation, Town Councils and NParks in both public and private estates have been added to the list from 1 June 2016 onwards.
These efforts are part of a Government aim to completely get rid of public smoking eventually, according to Senior Minister of State for the Environment and Water Resources, Amy Khor. This is because they feel that non-smokers have the right to be protected from second-hand smoke that could cause harmful health issues to those that inhale them.
At least they are pretty kind and give an allowance of three months in which those found smoking in the non-smoking areas will only be issued a warning in order to have time to adapt. However, those that take advantage of these three months and repeatedly flout the rules will still be fined.
If you are fined smoking in neighbourhood parks in private areas, you can be fined up to $2000 whereas in other zones it is around $1000 and last year alone, about 17,000 fines were handed out. You don’t want to be a part of those that get fined this year, right?
Civilians who are caught smoking in these premises will have their personal details handed over to NEA for action and the necessary punishments, while places under the SAF and Ministry of Home Affairs will follow the Smoking (Prohibition in Certain Places) Act and punish their personnel who flout the law accordingly.
However, owners of the places included in the new list of smoke-free public/private areas are allowed to establish smoking areas within their sites, so do look out for these areas if you’re really itching for a smoke.
Next time when you’re outside and want to light a cigarette, please take a careful look at your surroundings to see if there is a no-smoking sign, or else you might find yourself slapped with a thousand dollar charge, which I’m sure none of us want!
Top Image: 1000 Words / Shutterstock.com
This article was first published on goodyfeed.com
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