Ho Chi Minh City authorities have fined 114 bus drivers and attendants a combined VND58.6 million (US$2,536) for smoking at a downtown bus station in a campaign to crack down on smoking in public places this year.
The statistics were announced by Ho Quy Vinh, from the Ho Chi Minh City Management Center of Public Transport, in a meeting on Wednesday to sum up what have been done this year in the campaign.
Transport officials have clamped down on smoking at the Saigon Bus Station in District 1, which is the city’s CBD, and the Mien Tay (Western) Bus Station in Binh Tan District since January this year, when the municipal People’s Committee issued a fiat asking them to launch the campaign, Vinh said.
The management center has cooperated with relevant agencies to put up “No Smoking” signs on the buses at the two stations and 500 other bus stops across the city, he added.
Smoking rooms have been built at many bus terminals and cameras have been installed there to detect smokers.
Transport officials have fined 114 bus drivers and attendants a total of VND58.6 million for smoking at the Saigon Bus Station in District 1.
They also warned thousands of cases, mostly passengers, for the same offense.
Seventy percent of the fines will be submitted to the national treasury and the remaining 30 percent will be invested in public transport, Vinh said.
Over 3,000 drivers, vehicle owners, street vendors, and passengers have been given warnings for smoking in no-smoking sites at the Mien Tay Bus Station since July this year, said Tran Van Phuong, deputy director of the station.
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