Gopalan Mall, vendor booked for promoting cigarettes

The JP Nagar police have booked the management of Gopalan Mall on Bannerghatta Road, and a vendor at the shopping arcade for violating a section of the Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products Act (COTPA) that prohibits any kind of advertisement of cigarettes.

The police registered the case after Dr Upendra Bhojani, a member of the Institute of Public Health, made a complaint last Sunday about a kiosk on the first floor of the mall promoting a particular brand of cigarettes in “clear violation” of Section 5 of the COTPA.

The mall management and the vendor, whose names were not mentioned in the FIR, have to appear before the court and pay the fine as per the Act, an officer at the JP Nagar police station told Deccan Herald.

Dr Bhojani said he saw the kiosk while on a family outing. “I made a complaint as it is a clear case of violation of Section 5 of the COTPA which prohibits direct and indirect advertisement of cigarette and other tobacco products,” he said.
Strict enforcement of the COTPA has been on the ‘to-do list’ of the department of health and family welfare for a long time now. But the measures for the same appear good only on paper. Dr Bhojani said that he had to face difficulty making the complaint to the police who were not ready to accept the photographs he had taken on his mobile phone as proof of the violation.

They reportedly insisted on printouts of the photos. ‘No smoking’ boards
Despite the State government issuing a circular on August 30, 2014, that ‘No Smoking’ boards be displayed in all public places as mandated by the COTPA and set September 15 deadline for the same, the order has been followed only in breach.
The circular clearly stated that the board shall be of a minimum size of 60 cm x 30 cm with white background and shall contain a circle of at least 15 cm outer diameter with a red perimeter of no less than three cm wide having the picture of a cigarette or beedi at the centre, crossed by a red band. The board shall contain the warning “No Smoking Area – Smoking Here is an Offence” in English or an Indian language, as applicable according to the COTPA.