Russians comply with smoking bans

The overwhelming majority of Russian cafés and restaurants are obeying the ban on tobacco smoking in public places, according to an ITAR-TASS story quoting results of monitoring conducted by Consumers International, an international consortium of consumer-advocacy groups.

Between 93 and 94 percent of the monitored cafés and restaurants were found to have been observing the smoking ban.

But the hospitality sector was said to be less compliant. Violations were exposed in almost 34 percent of inspected hotels; ashtrays were found in just over 32 percent of hotels, and more than a quarter of inspected hotels were offering rooms for smokers or had smoking rooms.

Russia’s most recent anti-tobacco laws came into force on June 1, 2013, and June 1, 2014.

Nikolay Gerasimenko, a deputy chairman of the health committee of the Russian State Duma, said on Tuesday that the popularity of smoking was going down.

“Cigarette production has decreased,” he told a news conference. “The process began three years ago but proceeded rather slowly – by not more than three percent a year. The biggest slump in production took place in the first quarter of 2014 after excise duties had been raised.”

Gerasimenko cited the results of polls conducted by the WCIOM polling agency that indicated the number of smokers had decreased by seven percent during the first six months of the current year.