According to reporters, smokers in Spain have a few more months to light up in country’s restaurants, bars and cafes.

The federal government had planned to tighten the rules on smoking in public places in 2010, but, the Health Minister Trinidad Jimenez said that tougher restrictions are unlikely to be in place before the starting of next year.

While talking to media, the minister said that reforms of a 2006 law that suggested ban on smoking in the workplace and country’s metro, amid other locations, would be presented to Congress at the starting of June and debated the same month.

Further, she said, “All of that would take us to the beginning of 2011 when this could reasonably be approved.”

As per data showed by the health ministry, around 44.2 percent of Spaniards oppose tougher smoking restrictions, with 47.4 percent in favor and the rest undecided.

She said, “We're talking about a reform to public health ... smoking kills 161 people every day.”