Nanchang Evening News
March 5, 2009

People will be punishable for spitting in public places in the cities of Jiangxi Province, reports today's Nangchang Evening News. A regulation that recently went into effect imposes a fine of three yuan on violators.

The province's newly-updated regulations on city appearance and environmental cleanliness improves upon the older version, which failed to provide exact fines. For example, the old regulation stipulated that setting up advertising billboards would incur a maximum fine of 1,000 yuan. But this gave too much leeway to enforcers: they could decide to assess a fine of 10 yuan, 100 yuan, or 1,000 yuan.

In comparison, the new regulations define exactly how large of a fine to assess based on the surface space of the advertisement.

The new regulations also cover many other uncivilized behaviors, including urinating and defecating in public places (five yuan), littering paper or peels (one yuan), and littering cigarette butts or glass (four yuan).

People who live along the main roads of a city are not allowed to hang clothes out to dry on the balcony. One piece of the clothing will cost you five yuan, two pieces eight yuan, and more than three, ten yuan.

Jiangxi's regulations seem lenient when compared to municipal ordinances in some cities. In its bid to be the "National civilized city," Nanjing launched a three-month campaign to clear up the city in 2008. A 200 yuan fine was imposed for spitting, and it was enforced by the chengguan forces, who are well-known for their heavy-handedness.