PRAGUE - Beginning today, restaurants and bars in Prague will be required to post signs on the outside of their storefronts indicating whether they allow smoking, prohibit it, or provide a nonsmoking section, the New York Times reports. Businesses that do not display the signs will be subject to a fine of 5,000 koruna (roughly $180 US).

While restaurants are split on which format to follow, with higher-end restaurants tending to favor nonsmoking, while older establishments that attract tourists largely opting for a smoking section. The city's beer dens are mostly smoking spots.

The freedom to elect a smoking preference is one that some believe creates strong tourism appeal.

"[Many visitors love the Czech Republic] because it is all about the free lifestyle, and that includes the freedom to smoke," said Frantisek Skarboud, manager at Slavia, a popular Prague café, which offers both smoking and non-smoking sections for its guests. "We especially get thanks from Italians and French, [both of whose countries have strict public smoking bans]."

And despite the increased efforts of anti-smoking groups like the Czech Coalition Against Tobacco, some believe that a countryside smoking ban will never happen.

"In the countryside, if men can't smoke at the pub they will stay home, their wives will be on them to fix things, and marriages would suffer," joked Pavel Hlinka, president of the Czech Association of Hotels and Restaurants.