Smoking grounded at Moscow Airport

A Moscow Region court has ruled that smoking areas at Sheremetyevo Airport should be closed, according to a Russian Legal Information Agency story quoting an announcement yesterday by the prosecutor general’s office (PGO).

The country’s anti-smoking law, the second part of which came into effect on June 1, bans smoking in many enclosed and open public places, including airports.

The PGO said that it had been established that there were 10 designated smoking areas in Terminals D and E of Sheremetyevo Airport in violation of the federal law that prohibited smoking at airports.

The Sheremetyevo management had been instructed to dismantle the smoking areas within a month of the court’s ruling.

In consuming 340 billion cigarettes in 2012, Russia was second only to China, but it is starting to crack down on tobacco use.