By Wendy Jasson da Costa
Parents who sit with children in the smoking area of a restaurant will, with the business owner, be slapped with a huge fine.
This new measure is contained in a tough new draft Tobacco Products Control Amendment Bill that has been tabled in parliament.
In general, the bill proposes huge fines and tougher enforcement of smoking laws for smokers and businesses who defy anti-smoking laws.
According to the health department, children have become so aware of the evils of smoking that some have phoned the health authorities to report that their parents are smoking at home, even though this is not illegal.
If the health department's proposals are accepted, individuals caught breaking the law will have to fork out a minimum of R300 or an amount determined by the courts.
The proposals also suggest an increase in fines from R200 to a minimum of R200 000 for restaurant owners who do not enforce the law.
There is also a minimum fine of R100 000 for those who sell cigarettes to minors or who fail to comply with vending machine legislation.
Those who illegally advertise or give away tobacco products could be fined R1 million.
The health department hopes the new bill will make its way through the different parliamentary structures in time for implementation early next year.
Zanele Mthembu, the department's director of health services, said the new proposals effectively criminalised smoking, which was imperative because 25 000 South Africans died of smoking-related deaths every year.
"People have deliberately violated the law because they knew they could pay ," said Mthembu, who also admitted that the enforcement of anti-smoking laws was previously not done well.
She said the new proposals in the draft bill would:
- Close loopholes - because of which cases had been thrown out of court.
- Bring legislation in line with international laws, in particular the World Health Organisation's framework convention on tobacco control because South Africa was party to this convention.
"Once the law comes into effect we will popularise it and sit with our enforcement agencies ," Mthembu said.
"What we really want is to make non-smoking a social norm."
Nils Heckscher, the Western Cape head of the Federated Hospitality Association of South Africa, said enforcement of the legislation was necessary, but the draft proposals would not make a huge difference to the existing legislation.
Those who are already compliant will remain so and those who are not will be forced to, he said.
He said that it was exaggerated to look at fines of R1 million when people accused of rape or murder walked free with R500 bail.
Mthembu disagreed, saying: "We can't rank laws and say this is more important than that - we are talking about the health of our nation, so we have to ensure our legislation has no loopholes this time around."