Israeli Citizens Sue for Enforcement of Smoking Ban [04/20-5]

Excerpts from: Nonsmokers sue for law enforcement

By Ruth Sinai Haaretz Israel News [04/20/05]

Attorneys Shlomi Friedman and Gal Peleg and their eight children are not welcome guests at the Savyonim mall in Yehud. Although they go to the mall almost every day for shopping and entertainment, the storekeepers would happily forgo their patronage, just so that they would not bother other shoppers with repeated demands to stop smoking.

Friedman and Peleg, for their part, would be happy to stop bothering the smokers if only the Yehud Municipality would enforce the law banning smoking in the mall. The municipality says that it employs an inspector to enforce the law, but Friedman and Peleg have seen no evidence of this.

The two are convinced that Yehud, like most Israeli cities, is not enforcing the law restricting smoking in public places. The only thing the municipality agreed to do in response to Friedman and Peleg's requests was to hang a few signs forbidding smoking. Mall visitors and store personnel can often be seen smoking away underneath the signs.

Yesterday, Friedman and Peleg petitioned the Tel Aviv District Court, asking that the municipality and Yehud Mayor Yossi Ben-David be ordered to provide documentary evidence of the enforcement of the law - how many tickets have been issued to smokers, how many fines have been levied and a copy of the order appointing the inspector.

Increased awareness of the damage caused by passive smoking has led to restrictions on smoking in public places worldwide, including in pubs in Ireland, Greece and New York - "the center of democracy, freedom and liberalism," according to the petition. In 1983, the rights of nonsmokers were recognized in Israel with the enactment of a law restricting smoking. Responsibility for enforcing the law was given to three parties: Police, local authority heads and owners of public property where illegal smoking takes place.

Government ministries have no authority to enforce the law, as Friedman discovered when he approached Health Minister Dan Naveh and then-environment minister Yehudit Naot, a month before Naot died of cancer following years of smoking.

In November 2004, Friedman and Peleg were preparing to petition the High Court of Justice to order Ben-David to enforce the law. On the morning they planned to file their petition the municipality notified them it had appointed an inspector to enforce the smoking ban. Friedman and Peleg decided not to file their petition, as they believed the court would reject it in light of the appointment.

Friedman decided to talk to the inspector to find out if he was indeed enforcing the law. The inspector told Friedman that he was not authorized to enforce the smoking ban. Friedman and Peleg told the municipality that the inspector was not performing his duty in this matter. On January 5, 2005, Friedman telephoned the inspector and asked him to come to the mall to enforce the law against a man who was smoking. Once again, the inspector said that he was not authorized to do so and had no time to visit malls.

According to the petition to the High Court, Friedman repeatedly appealed to the municipality and informed city officials that the law was not being enforced, but he was ignored. A month ago Friedman and Peleg asked the municipality, through the Freedom of Information Law, for documents proving that the municipality is enforcing the ban on smoking in the mall. When they received no response, they filed their petition.

"Noncompliance with the law by some of the smoking public," they wrote in the petition, "is no different in principle than noncompliance and the violation of any other law, with one difference - violating the law restricting smoking infringes a principle of the most fundamental freedom, the right to preserve one's health.

"There is no option," continues the petition, "but to conclude that the respondents have chosen to hold their peace and to prevent the petitioners from revealing the embarrassing fact that [the municipality] is not enforcing the law."

The Yehud Municipality responded that it employs two inspectors who do their best to enforce various laws, and that more inspectors will be appointed soon, improving their ability to enforce the law.

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