By TATSUYA HARADA/ Staff Writer
November 14, 2024 at 17:50 JST
A designated smoking area at a park in Osaka's Nishi Ward on July 10 (Tatsuya Harada)
OSAKA—The Osaka municipal government will start to ban smoking on all public streeets across the city on Jan. 27 next year, Mayor Hideyuki Yokoyama said Nov. 12.
Yokoyama announced the starting date at the city assembly’s special committee for reviewing the previous fiscal year’s settlement of accounts.
He also said the municipal government will secure at least 140 public smoking spaces—120 new and 20 refurbished—by Jan. 27.
The city in 2007 put into force an ordinance that banned street smoking and carried a fine of 1,000 yen ($6.40) for violators. But it covered only the Midosuji district and areas around the municipal government’s building.
The area around Kyobashi Station was added to the no-smoking zone in 2015.
After Osaka in 2018 was named host of the 2025 World Expo, the city revised its anti-smoking ordinance to include areas around Osaka-Umeda and Tennoji stations.
The city eventually expanded the smoking-prohibited areas to all public roads and sections of Osaka.
The assembly passed the latest revision in March, and it allowed the mayor to decide its effective starting date.
The city also created a subsidy system to encourage private companies to build smoking spaces.
An organization consisting of restaurant businesses in Osaka Prefecture submitted a petition to the Osaka city assembly in November last year, asking it to establish more public smoking spaces than initially planned.
“We are scheduled to secure approximately 200 smoking spaces, including 140 that we have newly installed or renovated, and those provided for free by private institutions,” Yokoyama explained at the committee on Nov. 12.
Osaka Prefecture will also enforce its ordinance banning street smoking starting in April next year.
Smoking will also be basically prohibited inside buildings, such as restaurants with floor space exceeding 30 square meters, unless countermeasures are in place, such as smoking rooms.
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