Restaurant owners facing plunging turnovers and profits intend to defy the newly imposed smoking ban and supply their clients with ashtrays as of Sunday. The restaurant federation announced on Friday: “We are radically opposed to the time period in which the anti-smoking law is coming to be enforced. In a period when [the drop in] turnover in venues has reached or exceeded 50 percent, no one can oblige you to enforce an anti-smoking law that based on the figures that we have from the European Union leads to a 25 percent reduction in turnover. If to the 50 percent we add 25 percent then we are finished,” said the president of the Restauranteurs and Related Professions Federation Yiannis Tsakos in statements to the private ANT1 radio station.”We are going to put out ashtrays on all the tables. We know they can shut us down but we will shut down in any case so we want to hand over the keys and let them pay the rent, the electricity, VAT, local authorities, everything. Let’s see what they will do with the 400,000 people working in the dining sector. On Monday we will be here and waiting for them to come for the keys,” he added.(source: ana-mpa)
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