Beijing tobacco vendors breaking law with school locations

Official research has found tobacco vendors sited within 100 meters of more than a quarter of Beijing primary and high schools, violating the city's tobacco control regulation.

A panel overseeing law enforcement under the Beijing Municipal People's Congress, the capital's legislature, checked the surroundings of the capital's 1,570 such schools, and found many of the vendors failed to display warning signs about the harm of smoking and observe the ban on selling tobacco products to juveniles.

Supervision and law enforcement bodies should coordinate more effectively to put a halt to the vendors' flouting of the law, said Sun Kanglin, vice head of the municipal legislature's standing committee.

Beijing, home to more than four million adult smokers, rolled out a smoking ban on June 1, 2015. As well as banning smoking in indoor public places, workplaces and public transportation, it bans tobacco sales within 100 meters of kindergartens, primary and high schools, and other children's centers.

A survey by the Chinese Association on Tobacco Control found that 7 percent of primary school students and 13.8 percent of high school students polled had tried smoking in 2015.