BACOLOD City – Councilor Caesar Distrito is not satisfied with the implementation of the city’s Anti-Smoking Ordinance.
According to the Distrito, the local government needs to take a closer look at the problems facing the Bacolod City Anti-Smoking Task Force.
The task force has no vehicle and the enforcement personnel have recently been changed, the councilor stressed.
A vehicle will help in the mobility of the task force, Distrito said.
The Department of the Interior and Local Government has approved the city’s request for the procurement of a vehicle for the task force, he added.
Distrito said task force enforcers had to use their personal money moving around carrying out City Ordinance (CO) No. 641, series of 2013.
The local government will not stop enforcing the ordinance even until Bacolod is declared a smoke-free city, the councilor warned violators.
Hundreds have already been apprehended, most of them paying fines if not rendering community service, said Distrito. He urged those with pending fines to settle them at the City Treasurer’s Office.
Moreover, Distrito lamented that the names of violators who have yet to settle their fines have been forwarded to the City Legal Office for legal action but no one has been charged yet.
They must be charged to teach others a lesson, said the councilor.
Violation of the ordinance comes with a P500 fine on first offense, P1,000 on second offense, and P2,500 or a 30-day imprisonment on third offense.
Establishments will be penalized, too, if they allow smoking in their premises. The penalty includes the cancellation of business permit./PN
Its pack-up ordinance, good in paper only. Everybody is smoking everywhere. In cars, parking area, business establishment even in the government center. Nothing happen. Shit ordinance. L