In four of ten restaurants, cafes and bars, no sales slip is issued when this is asked. Rodion Gavriloi, volunteer of the Platform for Active Citizenship and Partnership for Human Rights, in a news conference at IPN said the sales slips are not provided most often in places in Balti municipality than in Chisinau municipality and Cahul town. The data were collected within a study rerun by the Center for Health Policies and Studies (PAS) to see how the anti-smoking law is observed.
Rodion Gavriloi said that of the 326 places monitored, 12 refused to issue sales slips, explaining that the cash register is broken or is under repair. In another ten cases, the waiters/barmen brought again the check, saying this is all they can offer.
The receipt is mainly not issued in places where the anti-smoking law is not respected. Thus, each sixth place where people smoked refused to present the sales slip, as opposed to each 14th place where no one smoked. In each fifth place where the visitors smoked, there were issued one to three receipts between 7pm and 11 pm. This means that no sales slip was issued by 7pm. It was established that the largest part of waiters do not have a work contract, but there are also waiters who do not know to use the cash register.
In 40% of the monitored places, there was no public information about the phone numbers of the Consumer Protection Agency.
PAS programs coordinator Gennady Turcanu said there is considerable tax evasion in bars and restaurants all over the country. These places consciously violate the law as they know that they will be fined 10,000 lei and will be able to work further in the old conditions.
The monitoring involved volunteers of the Association of Medical Students and Residents, Center for Health Policies and Studies, Platform for Active Citizenship and Partnership for Human Rights and civic activists of Chisinau and Balti municipalities. The monitoring was possible owing to the project “Moldova free from cigarette smoke” that is financed by “Campanian fos Tobacco-Free Kids” and “Bloomberg Philanthropies” and is implemented by PAS.
