Well, today I'd like to speak about a taboo. A taboo which is quite a lot discussed and has been, recently, and it's smoking. I can admit, of course, that I also tried smoking, but I would tell I am not definitely a smoker like that – not at least of cigaretes, but I can tell that from time to time I really like to make for me and my husband a water pipe, yeah, that is my favourite, really.
But now I'd like to speak about real smoking which can be unpleasant for a lot of people outside – for public. As you can surely remember during last couple of years there have been quite a lot of changes in the Czech Republic and I think I can say that these changes were in several waves. It started with forbiding smoking at the bus stops, for example, at such public places like that and also, of course, public buildings, which I suppose is really a good idea, surely. But the last big change appeared I believe it was this year in the spring when suddenly not only restaurants were like seperated inside where usually a corner was for non-smokers and the rest for smokers, yeah, that was also one of possibilities but, nowadays, I believe that smoking is inside really forbidden.
Yeah, on one hand, it is really good as for me as for a non-smoker eating my lunch during my really fast lunch break. Yeah, that's surely good, but, on the other hand, especially in the spring and in the summer it pushed people – I mean the smokers – to sit in the front garden of the restaurant or in the back garden, doesn't matter, and smoke there. Yeah, but that's really annoying especially for me – being a mother with a pram, of course, that I don't have so many opportunities to go to some café or restaurant and especially alone going only with a friend having also one or two children. That's bad. Because so many kids at once, yeah, you can't usually even drink coffee so definitely not think about a lunch having in the restaurant. But just imagine that. If I had only one child, and I would like to sit there outside because for me it is definitely much more comfortable walking there with the pram. It would be really quite even impossible, sometimes it is really, to get inside with the pram. Actually it is not impossible, of course, it is possible. But the problem is the space you need. It is not only the pram, and usually you go with your friend as I mentioned also having a boy or a girl in a pram so that means two prams and then that's really a nightmare, I believe, in café or in the restaurant, yeah, because you really even can't pass around it. Two huge prams next to the table, so definitely I would prefer to sit outside rather than go inside, willingly. Definitely but now if I really saw there anybody smoking, I would surely try to push myself inside, yeah, and that's really unpleasant.
So on one hand, I really agree with this prohibition, on the other hand, it is pushing us somewhere where we don't want to be exactly I would say. And I think it is really …. this restriction is tightening us and maybe it would be really more comfortable not to have restrictions or at least not to have so strict restrictions.