Following to previous news, Parliament will vote about new smoking law today. New bill should ban smoking in restaurants (smoking should be allowed only in separate rooms) and public areas.
Our view:
According to recent survey of MF Daily, 43% of MPs are for the ban of smoking in restaurants. The ban of smoking in restaurants, under condition of separate rooms have been discussed for some time. As not more than 1/2 of MPs showed their support for the proposal we expect it will be hard to push it through in the Parliament. Nonetheless, should the ban proposal finds enough supporters, so that the Czech Republic follows at least to some limited extent efforts across Europe, we would see it as short time negative for the whole tobacco industry. European study on the effects of smoking bans shows that these usually lead to 7-8 months lower cigarette consumption, while returning to pre-ban levels afterwards.