Objective: To explore the attitudes towards the Smoking Ban policy and the bias in different levels of related society sanctions so as to provide evidence for implementing anti-smoking measures in the public places.
Methods: A multi-univariate-multilevel logistic model was developed to find the relation between penalty attitudes and the covariates' effects.
Results: 74.6% (3647/4892) and 61.2% (2994/4892) of the residents agreed to punish either the managers of public places or to the smokers. The two kinds of attitude were associated (χ2=1253.45, P<0.0001). Residents being female, aged between thirty and fifty-nine years old, having had higher than college education, being non-current smokers, with high scores on knowledge of tobacco control, tended to have the attitude of punishing the public place managers and smokers. However, those persons exposed to everyday secondhand smoke or being non-current smokers, tended to punish the smokers in the generalized Wald test.
Conclusion: There was strong evidence noticed that most of the residents in Guangzhou had supported the 'tobacco control penalty'. Factors as age, sex, level of education received, knowledge on hazards of smoking, being current smokers and under secondhand smoke exposure were the influencing factors. Non-current smokers and those who exposed to secondhand smoke everyday, would prefer to take different penalties policies.