Singapore legislation
Clause 24
of Smoking (Control of Advertisements and Sale of Tobacco) Bill
Clause 24
Power to enter premises and inspect and seize advertisements, products, machines and documents
(1)
The Director or an authorised officer may, at all reasonable hours, exercise the following powers:
he may, for the purpose of ascertaining whether any offence under this Act has been committed, inspect any advertisement, tobacco or imitation tobacco product or vending machine and enter any business premises;
if he has reasonable cause to suspect that an offence under this Act has been committed, he may, for the purpose of ascertaining whether it has been committed, require any person carrying on a trade or business or employed in connection with a trade or business to produce any books or documents relating to the trade or business and may take copies of, or of any entry in, any such books or documents;
if he has reasonable cause to believe that an offence under this Act has been committed, he may seize and detain any advertisement, tobacco or imitation tobacco product or vending machine for the purpose of ascertaining, by testing or otherwise, whether the offence has been committed;
he may seize and detain any advertisement, tobacco or imitation tobacco product, vending machine or document which he has reason to believe may be required as evidence in proceedings for an offence under this Act; and
he may, for the purpose of exercising his powers under this subsection to seize any advertisement, tobacco or imitation tobacco product or vending machine, but only if and to the extent that it is reasonably necessary in order to secure that the provisions of this Act and any regulations made thereunder are duly observed, require any person having authority to do so to break open any container or open any vending machine and, if that person does not comply with the requirement, he may do so himself.
(2)
The Director or an authorised officer may, if he has reasonable cause to believe that an offence under section 3(1) has been committed in respect of an advertisement relating to smoking, require the person reasonably suspected of committing the offence to remove the advertisement from the view of members of the public and if the person fails to do so, the Director or authorised officer may cause the advertisement to be so removed and the person shall be liable to pay to the Director the reasonable costs of removal and disposal of the advertisement which may be recovered as a debt due to the Government.
(3)
The Director or an authorised officer shall, on seizing any advertisement, tobacco or imitation tobacco product, machine or document in the exercise of his powers under this section, inform the person from whom they are seized and, in the case of tobacco products seized from a vending machine, the person whose name and address are stated on the machine as being the proprietor or, if no name and address are so stated, the occupier of the premises on which the machine stands or to which it is affixed.
(4)
The Director or an authorised officer entering any premises by virtue of this section may take with him such other persons and such equipment as may appear to him necessary.