MORE than 900 smokers were caught puffing in out-of-bound areas, a month after the nationwide smoking ban was widened to cover more public places.

About half of them were picked up by plainclothes enforcement officers from the National Environment Agency (NEA) in the first week after the ban took effect on Jan 1, an average of 69 per day.

Most of those caught were smoking in newly banned places, which now include areas such as non-air-conditioned offices, hotel lobbies, multi-storey carparks and places within 5m of the entrances and exits of buildings.

Their excuse: they forgot that the new rules had kicked in.

After the first week, the number of smokers caught lighting up where they should not dwindled to about 20 a day.

Read the full report in Monday's edition of The Straits Times.