Smokers heading to Germany's famous annual beer festival, Oktoberfest later this year will be forced to light up outside. Voters supported a total smoking ban in Bavaria this weekend for restaurants, bars, cafes and beer tents.

Although turnout for the referendum was relatively low, at 37.7%, a full 61% of those voting favored a complete ban on smoking, according to Bavarian election officials.

The ban overturning an existing law will take effect on August 1 - with an exception allowing limited smoking at this year's Oktoberfest. Bavaria state's policy on smoking has swerved between extremes in recent years.

The state introduced Germany's strictest smoking ban in 2007 to promote public health. But the government, fearing it had outraged conservative rural voters, then changed its mind, partly undoing the ban. Anti-smoking groups then petitioned for the referendum.

The referendum result means Bavaria once again has Germany's strictest ban, effective August 1, well before the Oktoberfest beer festival begins in Munich in September.

Other states permit bars to reserve rooms for smokers only.
The outcome was a political setback for Bavaria's ruling Christian Social Union (CSU) party, which had taken what it viewed as a populist tack, arguing that smoking while drinking was an old Bavarian custom.