Gaane group working on stricter rules on smoking, not vice ban

THE so-called “smoking ban” is not a ban after all, but a regulation.

This, as Councilor Maria Lourdes Gaane reiterated that smokers would not really be prohibited to smoke cigarettes. A city council dispatch yesterday quoted Gaane as saying that smoking would be allowed only in designated areas — meaning, the campaign is only meant to set stricter smoking regulations but not a citywide ban.

The city council dispatch also suggested that a proposed ordinance has yet to be drafted. Part of it reads that the Smoke-Free Task Force “will draft a proposed ordinance providing for guidelines, and penalties that will be imposed against (sic) violators.”

The city council dispatch showed that the task force is still in the process of contemplating ideas and information that would help in the Smoke-Free Cagayan de Oro campaign.

It however reported that pursuant to the proposal, violators would be fined by as  much as P5 thousand.

An existing city ordinance, authored in the ’90s by the then councilor Antonio Soriano, regulated cigarette-smoking in the city. Basically, the Soriano ordinance made it illegal to smoke in enclosed establishments, especially public-owned buildings.

Gaane, a physician by profession, and chairperson of the city council’s committee on health and sanitation, and the Smoke-Free Task Force, said she hopes that the 45-day information campaign would result in positive public feedback.

The information campaign  started this Aug. 16 and would end on Sept. 30.

Gaane said smokers would be urged to quit smoking because of the vice’s serious effects on the heart and lungs.