BBC:

After years of debate, Austria’s government has announced plans to introduce a total smoking ban in cafes and restaurants by 2018.
Anti-smoking groups say that is too long to wait, but there have been protests by some restaurant owners, who say their business will suffer. . . .
“Smoking is a sort of culture, especially in Austria,” Margit Schwed told me as she sat in Cafe Ritter in Vienna, with its gilt chandeliers and marble table tops.
“In the typical Vienna Kaffeehaus you take your coffee and your cigarette. I think people like the flair in the coffee houses.”
. . . Several years ago, when many countries had already banned smoking in bars and cafes, Austria first adopted the idea of introducing separate smoking and non-smoking areas. Small restaurants could choose whether to go smoke-free or not. Larger restaurants, like Cafe Ritter, were obliged to provide a separate smoking section, sealed off by glass partitions.
The law was heavily criticised by doctors and anti-smoking groups as half-hearted and badly enforced.
Earlier this year, after the death of a prominent anti-smoking journalist from lung cancer, Austria’s coalition government of the Social Democrats and the conservative People’s Party announced plans to bring in a total ban on smoking in restaurants, cafes and bars by 2018.
“We have finally arrived in Europe with anti-smoking protection,” Health Minister Sabine Oberhauser said.

“Finally arrived in Europe”: It’s a disgusting little phrase, but she’s right. “Europe,” as twisted by the EU, involves the destruction of tradition, the restriction of choice, and slow slicing away of liberty. #EuropeanValues as the hashtag goes.

Oh well, time for a little Jack Buchanan.