Helsinki to impose smoking ban on employees during working hours

Gentle implementation planned for Smoke-Free Helsinki programme

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The City of Helsinki plans to declare itself a smoke-free city at the beginning of next year. However, the rules are to be applied in a less rigid manner than originally planned.
      The City Board was given a proposal by Deputy Mayor Paula Kokkonen (Nat. Coalition Party) under which municipal employees would not be allowed to smoke during working hours.
      The ban would extend to those working out of doors, even though enforcement is difficult. The city does not plan to make special efforts to monitor its employees’ activity. However, smokers will be offered guidance by experts on giving up the harmful habit
      There will also be measures to discourage the population at large from smoking. A tobacco addiction clinic is to be set up, and starter packages of nicotine replacement products are to be distributed.
     
Approval of the Smoke-Free Helsinki programme was postponed to a later meeting so that all of the members of the City Board might become better acquainted with it.
      The proposal, which has sparked intense feelings, will be later debated by the City Council - most likely on November 29th.
      The primary goal of the programme is to protect children and young people from exposure to tobacco, and to raise the threshold to starting the nicotine habit.
     
The programme extends until 2012, and will be aimed at reducing smoking among the population at large, as well as at the city’s own workplaces.
      The city wants its employees to be an example to the rest of the population. Another aim is to promote a public image of Helsinki as a city that supports healthy lifestyles.
      Matti Toivola, head of the Health Centre of the City of Helsinki, proposed to the city’s Board of Health that whether or not a person smokes should be a factor in choosing family day care locations.
      No such requirement is to be made, but those providing family day care will be reminded that the city operates according to the Smoke-Free Helsinki programme.
     
No designated smoking areas are to be set up at workplaces. Those who want to smoke during breaks will have to go out of doors to an area where the smoke will not go to places where it might disturb others.
      The most difficult time will be had by employees, such as nurses, whose breaks are included in the working hours. They will not be allowed to smoke at all.
      There have been proposals to change labour contracts so that all employees would have breaks that are not included in the working hours.
      It has not yet been decided how institutions that care for psychiatric patients are to be made smoke-free.
     
Sale of tobacco products would be banned in premises owned or managed by the city. The rule will be included in new rental contracts. The primary focus would be areas used by children and young people.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Book: Tobacco companies test genetically modified tobacco in Finland (17.10.2006)
  Parliamentary Ombudsman rules against discrimination of smokers in hiring (9.8.2006)

Helsingin Sanomat