Czech smokers take to the restaurants

Economist Jiri Schwarz of Prague's Liberal Institute expresses his doubts that proponents of a European-wide smoking ban are genuinely concerned about protecting the health of non-smokers. According to him, this is just another case of politicians wanting to tell people what to do: "Everyone knows that people smoke in restaurants. When you enter a restaurant, you're tacitly agreeing to be surrounded by cigarette smoke. It's an entirely different matter if the state bans smoking in public buildings or on the street, or in other words, in all public places. However, there are private places as well as public places, and restaurants are private spaces. What right does the state have to impose regulations on the owner of such a place?"

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