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• Czechs clarify smoking legislation but total ban still long way off  

The Czech Republic clarified – rather than tightened – its smoking legislation on Friday, when the Senate passed an amendment to the law on smoking in public places. The amendment was very much a compromise between anti-smoking campaigners on one hand, and those trying to protect people’s right to light up in bars and restaurants on the other. But as Rob Cameron reports, a total ban – such as that which exists in many European countries - is still a long way off.

As any visitor to Prague already knows, smokers are mostly free to light up anywhere and anytime they want in Czech bars, pubs and restaurants. The present legislation merely requires the owners of such establishments to divide seating areas into smoking and non-smoking, but when all that means is smoke wafting over from a smoking area into a non-smoking area, that separation is largely imaginary.

The new law attempts to clarify that. From now on – if the president signs it – pubs and restaurants will decide whether they are smoking or not, and will be obliged to say so on the door. Veteran anti-smoking campaigner Boris Šťastný, one of the MPs who drew up the amendment, had this to say to the online news server novinky.cz:

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