Smoking spot checks are a joke!

A new circular for the implementation of the smoking ban was sent on Thursday by the ministry of Health to every relevant agent, after the recent announcement by minister Loverdos that the state is once again waging the war against smoking.

According to the circular, those involved in the checks are obliged to send the results about  inspections and violations to the center for information, communication and reporting (1142) every week.

Members of the ministry estimate that the systematic recording, and especially the disclosure of checks, will work in favor of the enforcement, because as the minister himself said «everybody will have to take responsibility for their actions».

Anti-smoking checks are a parody

However, the data available at protothema.gr indicates that the great "window" that had opened in recent months with the evaluation of the implementation of anti-smoking law and the proposals to impose a special tax on tobacco shops, has canceled out every attempt of the control mechanism.

Overall, since October 12010 when the implementation started, 7.000 inspections have been conducted in hygiene-related businesses, almost half of them in Athens followed by Thessaloniki, Piraeus, Herakleion and Patra.

On the other hand, what the officials of the ministry of Health saw when they received the written reports about the inspections carried out by the Municipal Police, the violations and the fines imposed, could only be described as a tragicomedy.  

«Non-smoking» municipalities in Attica

Throughout the enforcement of the anti-smoking law the checks have been just for show, but last December the situation exceeded every limit.

* Το illustrate the point, it is reported that during the whole month in the municipality of Imittos there were 2(!) spot checks without a violation, and therefore without a fine!

* 9 inspections were conducted by officials of the Kifisia municipality, again without results: no smokers were found in the cafes and bars that were inspected!

* According to the data sent to the ministry of Health, "non-smoking" municipalities also included Marousi, Halandri and Aigaleo: 33, 25 and 12 inspections respectively were conducted there, again without any results.

* Smokers were detected in Nea Smyrni, Argiroupoli and Moshato! 11 spot checks were carried out and 2 violators received fines. In Argiroupoli, 16 checks were conducted with 7 violations. 10 spot checks were performed in Moshato, but without fines.

* The auditors in Vouliagmeni, however, were overzealous. They performed 69 inspections and detected 15 violations, issuing the relevant fines.

In the rest of Greece

9 inspections took place in Patras without violations, and the same thing happened for Nafplio: 1 spot check without a violation. 61 inspections were conducted in Thessaloniki and only half of them identified violations. In Rhodes and Kavala, 12 and 16 controls were conducted respectively, again without violators. In Ksanthi 28 stores were inspected with one violator. Komotini holds the inspection record, with 129 spot checks and 60 violations.