The section of the tobacco law dealing with the allocation of smoking areas in public places is about to face its first test in court.
Cape Town’s medical officer of health, Dr Ivan Toms, confirmed on Friday that his department has issued a summons against the city’s elite Kelvin Grove club over a bar area.
The summons followed a complaint from the anti-smoking pressure group the Tobacco Control Board.
Toms said the summons was issued only after inspectors issued a written warning and gave the club 30 days to comply with the law.
The Tobacco Products Control Act says the owner or person in control of a facility such as Kelvin Grove may designate a smoking area that ”does not exceed 25% of the total floor area of the public place”.
The definition of public place includes a workplace.
In terms of the summons, Kelvin Grove’s general manager Danie Appel must appear in the Wynberg Magistrate’s Court on October 15.
The club’s vice chairperson, Storm Reilly, said Kelvin Grove did not believe it was breaking the law, and that the charge would be ”strenuously defended”.
The maximum fine for contravening this section of the act is R200, though the health ministry has said it intends introducing an amendment that will increase the amount dramatically.
Though a number of Cape Town businesses have, according to Toms, paid admission of guilt or spot fines levied under this section, no case has actually come to court anywhere in South Africa. – Sapa