Not quite like the UK
By CTK / Published 31 July 2007 Prague, July 30 (CTK)
Most Czechs in favour of smoking ban in restaurants
- The number of Czechs who mind smoking in restaurants, bars and cafes is rising and over half of the population would like to ban smoking at such places completely, a poll conducted by the Median agency for the daily Mlada fronta Dnes (MfD) has revealed.
The results differ considerably from another poll made by the Eurobarometer agency half a year ago. Only one third of Czechs were in favour of non-smoking restaurants then,MfD writes today.
According to Median, 54 percent of Czechs want to ban smoking in restaurants completely. As many as 74 percent of them are non-smokers, the paper writes.
Smokers, on the other hand, do not like the idea of having to go out of the restaurant to have a smoke. Only 13 percent of them support a ban of smoking in restaurants, the paper adds.
The majority support for a complete ban of smoking in restaurants plays into the hands of the advocates of a new anti-smoking bill on which the lower house of parliament is to decide in September, MfD writes.
A bill by doctor Boris Stastny, an MP for the senior government Civic Democratic Party (ODS), does not suggest a complete ban of smoking in restaurants. That would have a small chance of succeeding in parliament, the paper writes.
Stastny proposes that restaurants obligatorily separate smoking areas from the non-smoking ones. The only difference from today’s habit is that the separation would not be just formal but that special rooms, separated from the non-smoking areas by walls, would have to be created, MfD writes.
