There's actually one very good reason to introduce a smoking ban - to raise revenue for restaurants, cafes and pubs. For example -
I was in Marche in Wroclaw last week. Group of three were in there, sitting, smoking and talking. They had finished their meals and drinks, yet continued to sit there, smoking and taking up a table when the place was very busy.
Then yesterday, again, some people in a cafe in Poznan, sitting, smoking and not actually spending any money apart from the one drink they had. They had finished the drinks, yet were staying there and smoking.
There's more examples, these are just the ones I've picked up on lately. It seems that non-smokers won't hang around once they're finished - or they'll buy more.
It seems, at least from what I can observe, that smokers will use cigarettes as a substitute for food or drink - whereas non smokers will always go and fetch another drink. For that reason, a smoking ban will discourage people from sitting there - thus you can get someone else through the door and spending money.
how can anyone argue that it will affect business? You mean to say that people will just stop going to pubs if they can't smoke there?
They'll still go. All the evidence in the UK suggests that it's the governments other policies and the breweries that are causing pubs to close, not the smoking ban. In fact, I seem to recall that Scotland and Ireland both recorded increases in pub visitors after the ban - not a decrease!
The thing that mystifies me is that the current Polish government has been hammering smokers with taxes - I think there's another increase about to happen? Yet they don't ban smoking indoors - and this is absolutely illogical.