In the first three months of the year, the Health Bureau filed a total of 1,969 cases of violation of the tobacco control law, including 1,965 cases of illegal smoking and four cases of not meeting labelling requirements of tobacco products, according to a statement issued by the Health Bureau this week. The Bureau says that between January and March there were 89,249 inspections of establishments under the Prevention and Tobacco Control Act, which means on average 981 inspections were conducted per day. Regarding the origin of offenders, fines for 1,145 fell to residents of Macau (58.3 per cent), 729 fines were applied to tourists (37.1 per cent) while 91 of the offences were committed by non-resident workers (4.6 per cent). In 79 cases, the support of the security forces was needed. As for casinos, in the first quarter of this year, Health Services and the Gaming Inspection and Co-ordination Bureau (DICJ) jointly conducted 118 inspections in Macau casinos. They targeted 136 individuals smoking illegally, of whom 107 were tourists. The new tobacco control law came into effect on January 1, 2012. The Health Bureau says that as at the end of March 33,096 individuals had been fined.
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