WAM Dubai, June 4th, 2012 (WAM) -- Public Health and Safety Department of Dubai Municipality specially honoured yesterday three entities, which have set the policy not to sell any tobacco products in their outlets forever, including all voluntary participants in the 24 hours quit of tobacco products on the occasion of World No Tobacco Day.

Eng. Salem Bin Mesmar and Essa Al Maidour Assistant Director Generals of Dubai Municipality, Eng. Redha Hassan Salman, Director of Public Health and Safety Department, senior officials of the civic body and representatives of honoured organizations were present on the occasion.

Salem Bin Mesmar and Redha Salman jointly distributed awards and certificates for the honorees and mementos to three special honorees namely, Uni-cop, Emirates Co-op and Aswaq Supermarket.

The participants in the 24 hour quit of tobacco products include the outlets of Hyper Panda, Safeer Group, News Center, Cadolle, Spinneys, Carrefour, Choithram, Lulu, Maya, Family, West Zone and J-Mart.

Redha Salman extended the special thanks and appreciation to the all participants and said that the civic body has been continuously taking all measures possible to protect the public health and safety with the active participation and cooperation of private sector.

�Some may wonder that why the municipality takes such an initiative for only one day, in fact, based on our experiences, this motivates many individuals and entities to think and take firm decision to quit smoking and sale of tobacco products marking this as a turning point in their life,' Salman said.

�The increasing number of voluntary participants in our initiatives and permanent quitters of tobacco products indicates the success of our endeavors and gives good signal about a healthy future the emirate of Dubai,' he added.

WAM/ES/AM