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Smoking ban extended to private-hire cars, outdoor areas of all varsities

SINGAPORE — From Sunday (Oct 1), smokers at all autonomous universities and private education institutions will be banned from lighting up while they are on the school compounds, except at designated smoking points.

SINGAPORE — From Sunday (Oct 1), smokers at all autonomous universities and private education institutions will be banned from lighting up while they are on the school compounds, except at designated smoking points.

Announcing the new restrictions on Tuesday, the National Environment Agency (NEA) said that smoking will not be allowed within a 5m radius of all educational institutions.

These will also include kindergartens, childcare centres, primary and secondary schools, and madrasahs.

Since 1997, smoking has been banned in all enclosed and air-conditioned spaces within autonomous universities under the Smoking (Prohibition in Certain Places) Act.

The latest restrictions extend the ban to the outdoor areas of school compounds. The schools will be responsible for the maintenance of the designated smoking areas, which can be set up in places where smoking was not previously prohibited, the NEA said.

The code of student conduct of the National University of Singapore (NUS) states that smoking is prohibited within university premises.

At Nanyang Technological University (NTU), smoking is prohibited in most areas on campus. These are all areas within 5m of the entrances and exits of buildings and facilities, as well as areas within a 5m radius from bus shelters.

It wants to introduce smoking cessation programmes for students and employees, and has also submitted plans to the NEA which would see it have a limited number of designated outdoor smoking areas, its spokesperson said.

The Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD) told TODAY that it already has designated smoking areas.

Staff members and students caught smoking outside these zones may get “letters of warning and/or counselling”.

“The ban on smoking outside of our buildings has no impact on SUTD as we are already a smoke-free campus,” it said.

For the last three months of the year, the NEA will take an “advisory approach” and those caught flouting the new rules will get verbal warnings.

However, those who repeatedly flout the law in spite of warnings during this grace period may be fined.

From next year, enforcement action will be taken against all offenders who smoke in the newly prohibited areas. The penalty will be a fine of up to S$1,000.

The NEA said that it has been working with the relevant stakeholders to ensure that “no smoking” signs will be installed within the affected premises, and bins with ashtrays will be moved or replaced with bins without ashtrays.

The smoking ban will also be extended to private-hire vehicles — when used to provide paid chauffeured services — as well as trishaws and excursion buses.

For trishaws and excursion buses, smoking is already prohibited when passengers are on board. The new ban means that both drivers and passengers will not be allowed to smoke.

With these latest rulings, smoking will be prohibited in more than 32,000 premises and locations, including malls, hospitals, schools, parks, bus-stops and common areas of residential buildings.

Undergraduate smokers interviewed by TODAY were mostly of the view that the ban would not do much to help eliminate the smoking problem.

A 21-year-old undergraduate at Singapore Management University, who wanted to be known only as Ms Tan, said that the measures would not do much to curb smokers’ habits.

Third-year NTU undergraduate Khairil Sari agreed.

The 24-year-old said he was more concerned that the designated smoking areas will be at inconvenient spots, because he tends to “take a smoke in between (classes)”.

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