May 31 marked the 33rd World No Tobacco Day. In order to check the results of public smoking prohibition work in urban areas and promote a smoke-free environment, the Yichang Municipal Health Education Institute conducted a survey on the prohibition work in public areas from May 23 to 27. The statistic shows that 95.83% of the public places are smoke-free, where there is no smokesmell, smoker or cigarette butts.

　　Those survey units are as follows: 72 public places of 6 categories in urban area, including 4 public transportation windows, 12 medical institutions, 16 offices in organ units and public institutions, 15 restaurants, 12 banks, 13 medium-scale and large-scale supermarkets and shopping malls. The survey mainly focuses on smoking control system, no-smoking signs, smoking situation, the setting of smoking areas and the sales and promotion of tobacco.

　　The survey shows that the situation in urban public places has been improved compared with that in 2019 in three aspects: there are no smoke or smokers in those areas. no-cigarette-butt places reach 95.83%, an increase from 2019; those with smoking set reduced to 6.94%, a decrease of 11.15% from the previous year; no tobacco advertising or promotion can be found in all public areas.

　　In some places, however, it is not the same case. The proportion of restaurants and shopping malls that have anti-smoking rules, no smoking signs, and warning of not smoking remains relatively low. Only 60% of the restaurants say they have the warning signs inside, 6.67% of them have smoke extinguishing places at the entrance. Much worse, no staffs in those shopping areas dissuade customers from smoking.

　　The relevant personnel in charge of the activity said that further efforts would be made to strengthen the supervision and inspection of anti-smoking activity in public places and turn it into a drive in promoting patriotic health movement and an important indicator in evaluating advanced public health units, civilized units and public health units and promoting the construction of smoke-free environment. (Reporter Liu Jingjing, Correspondent Fang Min)