Serbian health minister calls for draconic fines for indoor smoking

BELGRADE - Smoking in indoor areas should be banned in Serbia and fines for establishments that allow it should be draconic, Health Minister Danica Grujicic said on Friday and Belgrade Mayor Aleksandar Sapic backed her proposal.

Grujicic and Sapic were speaking to reporters after the opening of a diagnostics unit at the Obrenovac health centre.

Asked how a proposal to introduce 1 mln dinar fines for indoor smoking could be implemented in practice, Grujicic said Serbia should copy a detection model used by other countries.

"Others have installed smoke detectors. You would have centralised monitoring and 1 mln (dinars) would be deducted from the account of an establishment where a signal appears. That is my proposal - we will see," Grujicic said.

Serbia is the only country in the region that has still not banned indoor smoking, Grujicic said, adding that nicotine triggered malignant diseases and other illnesses.

The people's awareness of the harmful effects of smoking must be raised and indoor smoking must be eradicated, she said.

"The fines must be draconic... If someone pays a 5,000 dinar fine, that is nothing. It must be at least one million because owners of indoor establishments must not be able to afford to allow smoking," she said.

Backing the proposal, Sapic said other countries had already banned indoor smoking and that their tourism industries suffered no adverse effects as a result.

"I do not believe tourism in Italy or Spain has collapsed in places where smoking is banned," he said.

(1 euro = 117.3 dinars)