ASH Daily News for 05 August 2008

Smokers fined £550 for dropping cigarettes

Two men have been fined more than £550 each for dropping cigarette ends in Nottingham city centre. Fatmer Sula of Norbett Road, Arnold, and Thomas Lunt of Leybourne Drive, Bestwood, were handed the hefty charges by magistrates after failing to pay fixed penalties. Nottingham City Council said the successful prosecutions showed it was continuing to act against people who drop litter.

Mr Sula was issued with a fixed penalty notice on January 7 after he was witnessed by a Community Protection Officer throwing a cigarette end in Clumber Street. He failed to pay the notice and his case was heard at Nottingham Magistrates Court on July 14. Mr Sula failed to attend court and the case was heard in his absence. He was ordered to pay a fine of £375, costs of £177 and a £15 victim surcharge, totaling £567. Mr Lunt was issued with a fixed penalty notice for throwing a cigarette end in Old Market Square. He also failed to pay the fine and to attend Magistrates Court. He was ordered to pay a fine of £375, legal and investigation costs of £168 and a £15 victim surcharge.

Coun Katrina Bull, portfolio holder for environment and climate change, said: "This sends out the message that Nottingham City Council operates a zero-tolerance policy when it comes to littering, particularly cigarette litter as that increases our cleaning costs as a city. "We will take action against those people who continue to litter, helping us in our objective to be the cleanest of all the major cities. This city is not an ashtray."

Since June 2004, the city council has issued more than 5,000 notices for littering which have contributed to Nottingham becoming the Cleanest Core City out of the eight Core Cities in England. Residents also say the city is getting cleaner, according to the results of the 2006 MORI survey. The fine for dropping cigarette ends is £75.

Cigarette ends are made of a plastic which takes about 12 years to biodegrade. When dropped on to streets and pavements they can be washed into drains by rain, where they are carried to streams, rivers and beaches. The filters contain toxic chemicals that have been removed from cigarette smoke.

Source: Nottingham Evening Post, 05 August 2008
Link: http://tiny.cc/6Klfa

Verbal warnings for hospital smokers

Talking signs warning people that smoking is banned have been installed at a Cheshire hospital. Smokers outside the Halton General Hospital will receive a verbal warning every few minutes from the signs, which are designed to remind visitors, patients, and staff, not to smoke in the grounds. Talking signs have been installed at key areas such as main entrances and outside departments where smoking is still a problem.

Smoking has been banned throughout the hospital site since the smoking ban in 2008. Smoking bins are also being replaced and signs are being put up to remove contradictory information that it is still permitted to smoke outside the buildings. The talking signs idea was adopted from technology used for reminding people to wash their hands.

Source: Cheshire Online, 04 August 2008
Link: http://tiny.cc/sSVCC  

Potential tax rise adds to Japan Tobacco woes

Japan Tobacco has already had its fair share of bad news this year. But the world's third-largest cigarette company, with brands such as Camel and Benson and Hedges, is likely to face further turbulence in the months ahead. The beleaguered JT began the year inauspiciously with a tainted food scare, which battered sales in its food division. Then came the launch of "Taspo" last month, an age verification card that aims to crack down on under-age smoking but is also expected to be a significant factor behind a forecast 5 per cent fall in JT's cigarette sales.

More recently, the company has been hit by perhaps its biggest threat - a potential tax increase that could more than triple prices, from about Y300 ($2.77) for a pack of its cigarettes currently to as much as Y1,000. Cigarette prices in Japan are among the lowest in the industrialised world. The potential tax rise adds to JT's headaches in Japan, where the number of smokers is steadily declining, and highlights its need to seek growth in overseas markets.

Last Thursday, JT unveiled first-quarter results which showed a 42 per cent increase in earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation to Y180bn, largely as a result of overseas growth. But net sales in the company's home market fell 1.6 per cent. In its home market, where there is little good news for JT, the tax increase is being pushed by a suprapartisan group of politicians, which has jumped on the idea that higher taxes would not only discourage smoking but also boost tax revenues and help the government avoid having to raise the consumption tax.

The Science Council of Japan, which advises the Cabinet Office, forecasts tobacco tax revenues will rise to Y6,260bn and the smoking population fall 14 per cent if the price is raised to Y1,000. Yoko Komiyama, a Lower House Diet member from the Democratic Party of Japan, the opposition party, points out that medical and other costs associated with cigarette smoking came to Y7,154bn in 1999. That is more than triple the Y2,300bn in revenues from tobacco taxes, according to a government-sponsored study.

Armed with such statistics, the group aims to incorporate a substantial cigarette tax hike into tax reforms to be agreed later this year and implemented next year. JT, with a 65 per cent share of the market, has been reeling from the impact of this latest campaign. Its share price has fallen by about 28 per cent from Y681,000 at the start of trading this year. The company, which is still 50 per cent owned by the Japanese government, argues that higher taxes would not only hurt its own bottom line but would also devastate the 300,000 cigarette shops in the country and the 13,000 tobacco-growing families in Japan from which JT buys its leaves.

JT, which is dependent for more than half its revenues on the domestic market, says Japanese smokers are already burdened with high taxes, at about 63 per cent of the price of a pack of cigarettes. Hiroshi Kimura, president of JT, wrote in a protest letter to the ruling Liberal Democratic party (LDP): "Why are smokers, who already contribute Y23,000bn in tax revenues, being singled out for a further tax burden? It must be said that this is a simplistic argument that goes against fair taxation." JT points out that when cigarette taxes were raised in 2006 and 2003, consumption fell and tax revenues did not rise.

Philip Morris, number two in the Japanese market with a 25 per cent market share, argues that a sharp rise in taxes could hurt tax revenues and lead to other adverse consequences. In the UK, sharp tax increases in the 1990s did not result in a major drop in smoking but created a black market in cigarettes, which resulted in a loss of tax revenue, says Peter Nixon, director of corporate affairs at Philip Morris in Tokyo.

Analysts say raising taxes will not be easy, given the impact on retailers and tobacco farmers - who are traditionally LDP supporters - and the government's 50 per cent stake in JT. The political dimension means that any rise is likely to be moderate, says Hirohisa Shimura, analyst at UBS in Tokyo. But if taxes are increased, the crucial point for cigarette makers is not only how large the increase will be but whether they will be allowed to raise prices as well. 

Source: Yahoo Finance, 04 August 2008
Link: http://tiny.cc/gliUb

Dubai: Smoking to be banned in parks

Dubai Municipality will extend the smoking ban to include public parks, according to a Gulf News report. Smoking regulations are currently enforced in malls, restaurants and cafes, hotels - although no one has yet been fined for breaking the law.

Source: AME Info, 05 August 2008
Link: http://tiny.cc/Z0ipI