What the Sunday papers said

Pubs and restaurants will face fines of up to £2,500 if customers drop cigarette butts on nearby pavements when the smoking ban comes into force in England from July 1. Fearing a deluge of pavement litter, ministers have shifted the clean-up responsibility for clearing up dog-ends, cigarette packets and used matches onto businesses. The British Beer & Pub Association said it was unfair to target pubs and restaurants for special treatment. - Sunday Express​

Red tape in the UK has hit a record £56bn and shows no sign of slowing, figures to be published this week will reveal. The British Chamber of Commerce (BCC) says the cumulative cost of regulation has risen from £44.8bn a year ago to £55.6bn in 2007. The biggest burden on business, according to the BCC, comes from working time regulations and data protection. - Sunday Times​

A major feature on Cashbox, the cash machine supplier, reveals a "web of deceit" that has left the company in turmoil. A recent court case between Cashbox founder Carl Thomas and his former employer Hanco has found that Thomas was putting together his new company and lining up new clients at a time when he should have been attending to Hanco's interests. Cashbox board executives have meanwhile been waiting for an explanation from Thomas on a series of share dealings he undertook while the company was the subject of an approach by a potential buyer. Thomas was suspended as the firm's chief executive as a result of the shares question. - Sunday Times​

Budejovicky Budvar, the state-owned Czech brewer, is set to become the latest drinks company to come to market. Government ministers have confirmed they are to discuss privatising the 102-year-old business, with estimates valuing it at around £500m. One obstacle to a stock market listing could be the long-running global dispute with Anheuser-Busch over the right to use the Budweiser trademark. - Independent On Sunday​

Gordon Brown is set to reap a £1bn-plus windfall this year from property companies turning themselves into real estate investment trusts (REITS). The bumper pay-off is to materialise as firms pay conversion charges - two per cent of the value of the assets being converted - to become trusts. Land Securities is said to have paid £315m in such charges. However experts says the Treasury loses out in the long run; since REITs pay no corporation tax, although share holders still pay tax on dividends, which are essentially a large chunk of a REITs' profits distributed amongst investors. - Mail On Sunday​

Analysts suggest Whitbread could launch a securitised bond issue underpinned by the group's asset base and its strong operating business. The money raised could then be returned to investors. With a view to expanding its hotels arm, Whitbread is looking to building on spare land next to sites where it already has a pub or a David Lloyd leisure centre. - Sunday Times​

The vast majority of bouncers working outside the country's clubs and pubs are law-abiding, but it remains an open secret that many use their jobs as cover for drug dealing or other illegal activity. Most local authorities have schemes to ensure bouncers do not have criminal records and are fully trained, but such schemes are full of flaws and routine police trawls often find dozen of unlicensed doorstaff working, many moving from town to town. - Observer​