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Doors to public places shut to smokers in Lithuania
2007-01-02
Smokers in European Union member state Lithuania were forced to indulge their habit in the streets after a ban on smoking in public establishments took effect at the start of the year. A law against smoking in cafes, restaurants, bars, nightclubs, discotheques and other public establishments -- passed by the country's parliament in May -- came into force on Monday. Owners of establishments that flout the law and allow their clientele to light up on the premises could be fined up to 5,000 litas (1,400 euros, 1,800 dollars). Some 39 percent of Lithuanian men and 14 percent of women are smokers, according to recent data collected by the Baltic country's department of statistics. The world's first nationwide smoking ban in public places was imposed in Ireland in 2004. Other countries, including Italy and Lithuania's northern neighbour Latvia, have also banned smoking in enclosed public places. A poll conducted throughout the EU at the end of 2005 showed that close to four-fifths of EU citizens support a ban on smoking in offices, shops and other indoor public spaces. But only 61 percent of 29,000 people surveyed support a ban in bars, the poll showed. Twenty-seven percent of respondents to the poll said they were smokers, down from 33 percent in 2002, when the EU comprised 15 members, and not its current 27. Lithuania was one of 10 countries -- most from the former communist bloc -- which joined the EU in 2004. Bulgaria and Romania joined on January 1 this year. The EU's most enthusiastic smokers are in Greece, Cyprus and Portugal, the 2005 poll showed. Almost 40 percent of Greeks and Cypriots smoke between one and 29 cigarettes a day, while 18 percent smoke 40 or more.
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