Café guests smoke cigarettes with their drinks in Vienna on March 22nd 2018.
Austrian MPs on Thursday scrapped a smoking ban in bars and restaurants that
was due to come into force in May, despite a petition in its favour collecting 545,000 signatures.
The overturning of the ban, introduced by the previous government, was approved by lawmakers from the ruling coalition of the conservatives and the far-right.
In an attempt to assuage critics, they also voted to extend the minimum age for smoking to 18 as well as to ban smoking in vehicles if a minor is on board, effective from 2019.
Scrapping the ban was a key campaign pledge last year by the cigarette-loving leader of the far-right Freedom Party (FPÖ), Heinz-Christian Strache, 48.
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