Smoking has been a more difficult activity in Macau in 2019, as new rules make it much harder to find a legal place to have a few puffs. For the most part, Macau residents get it and have been following the law; but tourists appear to be a totally different story.
As reported by Macau Business, 68.3% of the 3,776 smoking violations in 2019 were committed by tourists. Only 27.7% were caused by locals, and another 4% by non-resident employees.
These numbers came from the Macau Health Bureau, and reflect all violations they’ve recorded since the new smoking ban, which prohibits smoking in enclosed public places, went into place on January 1, 2019 and until the end of August. They were kind enough to reveal quite a lot about the nature of the violations, and where they took place.
Almost all of the violators were male, they noted, and 26.1% of the violations took place in casino areas. Parks and gardens and shopping malls were the runners up, representing 16.4% and 14% of violations respectively.
They also noted that in August, the areas with the most offenses were the Wynn Palace Casino, Carlos d’Assumpção Park, and the Lin Fong Building. Many of these violations might have been caught by the Gaming Inspection and Co-ordination Bureau (DICJ), who’ve conducted over 900 inspections this year.
The smoking ban started off in a very wild way, with one Chinese man attacking police who warned him to stop smoking in early January. Thankfully, that violence hasn’t often been repeated, but the fact that tourists are still the biggest violators, and mostly at casinos, is one that Macau will want to change.
Last time we received statistics about the worst offenders in the industry, the Grand Lisboa topped the list. They’ll be happy to be off of it now, but with the Wynn Palace now at the top, they will become a target of scrutiny until they can get more smoking loungers, or better educate their patrons that smoking is a no no.
