Cigarette price hike planned

Cigarette producer Austria-Tabak is to hike its prices next month, according to newspaper reports.
Half of the company’s cigarettes will become more expensive as of 1 February, according to today’s (Tues) Kurier.
An Austria-Tabak spokesman said: "We have not raised prices in two years."
He added higher production, energy and raw tobacco costs were behind the planned price increase.
The newspaper predicted that other cigarette producers will probably also raise the prices of their products.
Meanwhile, Vienna coffee shops are demanding more time in which to carry out reconstruction of their premises to comply with legislation on smoking, according to the People’s Party’s (ÖVP) Business Association, which polled 2,000 coffee shop owners.
Association chief Berndt Querfeld said today that 51 per cent of coffee house proprietors feared they would go out of business if the law was not changed and 62 per cent said they had not yet carried out reconstruction.
He said small establishments would have the most trouble in arranging for smoking and non-smoking areas as called for by the law. If they could not, he explained, they would automatically become non-smoking establishments.