Three MPs from the three main parties are proposing an amendment to the smoking ban. In effect, proposing a common sense solution allowing the owners of premises to have a smoking room available should they so wish. This is pretty much what should have happened in the first place. Indeed, the whole principle of a ban was totalitarian in concept; a triumph for the bansturbators over the rights of individuals to make up their own minds about the matter.
As a non smoker, I would generally eschew very crowded and therefore smoky pubs. This is as much to do with my introversion as my distaste for too much tobacco smoke. Small quantities don’t bother me, but a room full of it irritates my nose and throat. But, you see, being an adult, I could always make a choice. Sometimes, I chose to put up with it because that is where the people I wanted to be with chose to go. Other times, I chose not to. I didn’t need the government to make the decision for me. Nor did I want it to.
The idea of a separate room in a venue that caters for smoking is a pragmatic one. It gives people choice. They can decide for themselves whether they will tolerate the smoke or not. Of course, now that we have the evils of fourth hand smoking, the idea is a non starter. Even contemplating it will give people cancer.
In the meantime, the gimlet-eyed anti-smokers march on with their crusade.
A town is set to become the first in Britain to ban smoking from its streets.
Councillor Paul Bartlett, 50, wants to create a new bylaw to outlaw smoking in any open place or public street in the market town of Stony Stratford, Buckinghamshire.
If the scheme is passed by the town’s council as well as Milton Keynes Council, smokers who lit up in public places would risk being fined.
The proposal comes after the mayor of New York banned smoking from parks and beaches in the city last month.
Jesus!
If that amendment gets through, I can guess which room in the pub is going to be most popular.
“This is pretty much what should have happened in the first place”
What should have happened in the first place is absolutely nothing at all…
Well, yes, that’s a given. Let me rephrase…
Given that a ban was on the cards no matter what, that is what should have happened in the first place.
I don’t like the smoking room amendment and for one reason: an awful lot of pubs are open-plan these days, making this idea impossible. Will this also be allowed for pubs that serve food? Will the smoking room be right next to areas where people are eating? Will people be allowed to eat in the smoking room?
I think the smoking/non-smoking private property divide would be a better idea.
Well as he seems determined to turn Stony Stratford into a ghost town, perhaps we should just sit back and let him get on with it.
In fact, let’s not stop there. Let’s campaign for the abolition of all activities which cause pollution and litter in Stony Stratford. No motor vehicles. No fast food outlets. No sweet shops. No confetti at weddings.
Don’t just let them go over the top. Shove them over the top.
Paul:
“Will people be allowed to eat in the smoking room?”
Why wouldn’t they be? And what business is it of yours if they are?
What’s wrong with fitting efficient extraction systems? That should solve everyone’s problem.
Monty: Why wouldn’t they be? And what business is it of yours if they are?
It isn’t any of my business – “allowed” was the wrong word here. That’s what I’m trying to get at, because you just know that the bansturbators will make any change in the law as difficult for the smoking lot as possible.
Paul: I’ve seen ‘smoking rooms’ in other countries and they don’t require a separate room per se. Open plan bars have a part which is behind a glass door with quite astoundingly efficient extraction. They cost about the same to install as the new shelving that anti-smokers say that tobacconists should find no financial burden at all.
As for the smoking ban in the streets, Longy. It’s Milton Keynes, the place has been a joke for decades, so nothing too surprising there. 😉
“Don’t just let them go over the top. Shove them over the top.”
Yes!
The most popul;ar room in the pub – will be the NON-SMOKING one ….
Less than 25% of the population smoke.
I agree, that a “Smoking room” where fumigation is allowed would be a good idea, though.
I quite agree Greg.
But on the other hand, if pubs were given a choice to be smoking or non smoking, I would expect the busiest pub in town to be the first one to declare itself a smoking pub.
As a non smoker, I would generally eschew very crowded and therefore smoky pubs. This is as much to do with my introversion as my distaste for too much tobacco smoke.
Very much my way too and yet we know the smoking ban is wrong.
Well as he seems determined to turn Stony Stratford into a ghost town, perhaps we should just sit back and let him get on with it
Smokers are in a decided minority so I don’t think so. That said, I consider a ban on smoking outside an unnecessary step. Still if there are sufficient people in Stony Stratford who consider the ban outrageous they can always make their feelings felt at the next election, can’t they?
As a non smoker, I would generally eschew very crowded and therefore smoky pubs. This is as much to do with my introversion as my distaste for too much tobacco smoke. Small quantities don’t bother me, but a room full of it irritates my nose and throat. But, you see, being an adult, I could always make a choice
Pre-ban, there were hardly any non-smoking pubs so the ‘choice’ you refer to was illusory.
The usual argument for anti-ban people is to first advocate ‘choice’ and then when they are reminded that the choice pre-ban was virtually non-existent, to say ‘well that’s market forces’, which shows that their concern for choice is entirely one-sided and hypocritical.
The reality is that had pubs made serious attempts to acommodate non-smokers – who let’s remember are the vast majority in this country – then no legislation would have been needed. Their intransigence and bloody mindedness ensured the ban. No sympathy at all.
Of course I had a choice. I could choose to enter or not. Often, it was not.
Of course I had a choice. I could choose to enter or not. Often, it was not
In that sense, smokers also have choice. They can choose whether or not to enter a pub or to smoke outside.
Stephen: The reality is that had pubs made serious attempts to acommodate non-smokers – who let’s remember are the vast majority in this country – then no legislation would have been needed.
Wetherspoons tried a non-smoking policy in their pubs some months before the July 2007 ban, probably believing the anti-smoking hype somewhat. They quickly removed it when they realised they were losing trade by doing so, pissing off a lot of their customers in the process (a lot of their customers were, and probably still are, pensioners who like a drink in the afternoon). So they ditched the policy and waited for the legal ban.
And I’m still waiting for those veritable legions of non-smokers swarming into pubs to drink five pints of foaming ale every night. Oh, yes, that’s right, they don’t exist. And I say this as non-smoker.
Again, the private property divide works best – those pubs that make all their money from eating probably won’t want to go back to being a smoking pub. At the end of the day, I think it’s all a bit too late to change the decline in pubgoing but there’s no need for such a spiteful policy. As in all cases, the people that get hurt are the ones in the middle – the elderly, the infirm, the people without reliable social contacts, the lonely, the publican, the brewer, the staff and so on.
Countries that aren’t so self-destructive with regard to their pub industry seem to do very well with partial bans. A lot of it has to do with market conditions – i.e. a total ban on smoking inside a pub in Malta or Cyprus, whilst not particularly pleasant, would never have anywhere near the same effect that it has in the UK or Ireland. I’ve been to both territories and smoking bans are routinely ignored there.
Dick Puddlecote: I’ve seen ‘smoking rooms’ in other countries and they don’t require a separate room per se. Open plan bars have a part which is behind a glass door with quite astoundingly efficient extraction.
Yeah, I know what you’re referring to. Seen them a couple of times, Faro and Tallinn most recently. Question is, would they be at all practical or reasonable in an open-plan, traditional English pub? A European-style modern bar would be much less of an obstacle and it might fit in more, but would look very out of place in an English pub.
Wetherspoons tried a non-smoking policy in their pubs some months before the July 2007 ban, probably believing the anti-smoking hype somewhat. They quickly removed it when they realised they were losing trade by doing so
So in other words, denying choice to non-smokers is perfectly OK when ‘market forces’ can be used to excuse it. Choice is apparently something that only smokers are permitted to have.
And I’m still waiting for those veritable legions of non-smokers swarming into pubs to drink five pints of foaming ale every night. Oh, yes, that’s right, they don’t exist
Untrue. I know several, including one who managed to give himself Type 2 diabetes through his love of ale. This myth of non-smokers being health obsessed, t-total vegans is long past its sell by date.
Again, the private property divide works best – those pubs that make all their money from eating probably won’t want to go back to being a smoking pub
Personally I would have preferred a compromise – e.g. a licensing system and enforced ventilation – rather than a full ban. However most smoking rights advocates I meet are obsessed with wanting everything their own way and are only intereted in a return to the pre-ban situation of smoking permitted everywhere. In the light of such intransigence, my sympathy has massively declined.
As in all cases, the people that get hurt are the ones in the middle – the elderly, the infirm, the people without reliable social contacts, the lonely, the publican, the brewer, the staff and so on
Of course, pre-ban such people suffered if they were non-smokers. I didn’t see any concern being expressed for them then.
Stephen: Untrue. I know several, including one who managed to give himself Type 2 diabetes through his love of ale.
You’re misunderstanding what I’m trying to say here. I’m saying that most likely almost all of those non-smokers who go to pubs regularly to drink ale would have done so with or without the smoking ban. It didn’t concern them. I saw many, many posts on Internet forums at the time of the ban saying “oh, we’ll go in now the smoking ban’s come in – clean air!” – only they didn’t. Or if they did, they went a few times and no more. Perhaps they drop in now a couple of times in summer instead.
I’m saying that there weren’t the massive influx of new non-smoking customers after the ban. They utterly failed to materialize. ASH and the like lied about this. They painted the ban as a new renaissance for pubs – it never happened. Pubs closed and continue to close at an alarming rate.
The type of non-smoker who goes in a pub and drinks five pints of an evening isn’t likely, I would have thought, to be extremely sensitive to a whiff of tobacco smoke. You’re talking about his friends here, people he knows and relaxes with while they all shoot the shit.
My local was doing OK before the ban – now it relies on food, weddings and christenings to survive, mainly. The pub atmosphere has been lost because people are only really there for celebrations and to talk to people they know. The community side of it has been fragmented. Other forces come into play also to make it less appealing to many, like the increasing conservatism of the beer they can stock and their flavour, born out of necessity due to the tax situation and most of the remaining customers wanting more homogenous beer.
“The usual argument for anti-ban people is to first advocate ‘choice’ and then when they are reminded that the choice pre-ban was virtually non-existent, to say ‘well that’s market forces’, which shows that their concern for choice is entirely one-sided and hypocritical.”
I couldn’t care less about the choice.
For me it’s very simply about freedom. It’s none of the government’s business whatsoever to tell someone what they will and won’t allow on their property.
The people who are OK with this will no doubt be in for a nasty shock when they discover government mandated lifestyles will, sooner or later, be applied to them. And then I can laugh as the sneering arrogance gets wiped off your face.
I’m sure you’ll be happy then that there’s people like me. People who pay no attention in the slightest to all this vicious nonsense. People who are quite happy to let you live how you want.
The only way any sort of government-mandated smoking ban comes into force on my business property is over my dead body.
The choice should belong to the owner of the property. Some owners would choose non-smoking if the demand was there, however, the demand is often not there because many non-smokers with smoking friends or family would prefer to suffer the smoke than have members of their group disappear regularly for a puff. It is annoyingly difficult to pick-up the threads of an animated debate after someone returns from having a fag so it is the perfect out for the smoker just about to lose an argument.
That’s precisely the point. He then stands or falls by his decision.
My apologies Paul, I misunderstood the point you were making.
I agree that the proprietor should have the freedom to run his own premises as he sees fit.
We tend to assume that, pre-ban, all pubs and clubs were ‘smoke-filled’. That is not true, nor has it ever been true and is another fiction promoted by ASH. The vast, vast majority of pubs and clubs already had extractor fans. They were needed to keep the temperature reasonable if for no other reason. It has been the case for donkeys years for an extractor fan to be running at low revs all the time in these places when they are busy.
Of course, some pubs were not that bothered and became ‘smoky’, but they were very few.
My serious point is that these places were so few that anyone who was concerned about smoke (of any kind) could easily find a place with no smoke, or so little as to be imperceptible.
It has been one of the major successes of ASH to promulgate the idea of ‘smoke filled pubs’. They never really existed. Even smokers would not frequent such places.
As a lifetime non-smoker (put off by my father’s vile pipes) and a LIFE-member of CAMRA …
All this business about smoking being “popular” is a lie.
If you want to fumigate yourself, get on with it.
If you want to fumigate yourself, and other like-minded people, get on with it.
If you want to fumigate yourself, AND others who DON’T, then bugger off!
My wife also loves a pint of beer.
It’s a lot easier for her to go into pubs, now the smoking ban is on.
Sorry, but the fumigators propaganda is just that.
At the same time – if they want to do it, without blowing it in my face, I have no objection – why should I?
We’ll see how complacent you are when the denormalisers are finished with your vice, Greg. They’re just getting warmed up on the EVIL that is alcohol.
Back before the ban, most people didn’t smoke but the few that did stank the place out; every time you went to a pub, you got to smell like a particularly malodorous kipper. That basically isn’t fair; it isn’t even as if cigarette smoke smells vaguely nice; it doesn’t at all.
However, the bansturbationary response of “Ban everything!” was way over the top. A useful compromise would be to let pub owners designate an area of a pub as being the “Smoking Room”, with a set level of ventilation (complete air changes per hour being a useful measure) being mandatory in this area, and this being ALL the legislation should mandate, save for one area being a strictly non-smoking area and being not less than 10% of the floor area of the pub.
So, this would therefore would let a pub be 90% smoking with an area for the absolute smokophobes to lurk, and the rest of the place adequately ventilated so you’re not enveloped in a fug of stale reeking smoke.
It would also have an interesting side effect. Given that exchanging a lot of air with atmosphere would be mandatory, some form of heat exchanger would be a good idea in winter (use a chimney as the outflow pipe, put the inflow somewhere else and use pumped refrigerant to move heat about). This sort of tech is a good idea for highly insulated homes, but it isn’t common because there isn’t a demand for it, yet. Might be a decent idea to force development of a useful tech through a law…
You can’t blame the honourable councillor, he’s got a deformed character.
http://cmis.milton-keynes.gov.uk/CmisWebPublic/Binary.ashx?Document=22975
Being a lifetime non-smoker and a LIFE-member of CAMRA does not give you the right to tell an owner of private property how they should run their property, Greg. If they want it to be 100% smoking that should be their right and if you and your mrs don’t want to go in because of that, that is your right. There can (or at least should) be no consumer right to choice because that requires imposing on others to provide that choice. Those who wanted a smoke-free pub had a simple choice, buy a pub yourselves and turn it into a smoke-free pub, but no, far better to get the po-faced nanny brigade to legislate to force private property owners to introduce a practice against their will.
Nobody is claiming smoking is popular but as I pointed out above, many of us were prepared to accept smoking in pubs so that we could enjoy a social night out with our friends and family, including those who smoke, even though we are not smokers. But the only relevance of that is that it indicates why pubs could be successful as smoking premises although many patrons, even the majority, did not smoke. The only relevant point is: if you own a property, it should be your right to determine what legal activities occur on that property (I put in the legal so some idiot won’t come up with some asinine comment about Sweeney Todd).
This should occur naturally as providers compete for business.
Something was floating about in my mind that I could not quite identify – and then it struck me. ASH cannot claim that the recession is both harming pubs and not harming pubs at the same time.
Here are some recent posts by ASH. I trust that people will see the basic contradictions. “Oh what webs we weave…….”
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“”Data from the Office for National Statistics shows a net increase in the number of people visiting pubs since the smoking ban. When England went smoke-free in 2007, the number of premises licensed for alcohol increased by 5 per cent, and it has continued to grow every year since.””
That from Emily Duncan in the Independent 29th May 2011 “The unstoppable march of Big Tobacco”
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.”””Pubs, like all small businesses have been hard hit by the recession…””” From Arnott.
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“””However, the pro-tobacco lobby’s claims that the smoking ban has led to pub closures are unfounded. In 2007, the year England went smokefree, the number of licensed premises for “on sales” of alcohol actually increased by 5% [4] and there has been a net increase in the number of people reporting going to pubs since the smokefree law came into effect. [5]”””
Essentially, it is the same statement of fact, but from ASH on 29th June 2011 and unattributed.
Arnott, of course, comments:
“”“Pubs, like all small businesses have been hard hit by the recession. But the tobacco lobby group assertion that thousands of pubs in England and Wales are under threat of closure due to the smoking ban does not stand up to scrutiny. The British public are enjoying the benefits of smokefree drinking and dining and there is little appetite for a return to the bad old days of smoky pubs.”””
—————————————–
Is ASH contradicting itself or not?
Separate smoking areas in pubs are a complete non-starter.
Here’s a few of the reasons:
1. The ventilation/extraction will never be maintained properly
2. Nobody will bother to keep the doors shut
3. Smokers are naturally selfish and think nobody really notices, so they’ll just wander through the no-smoking bit, lit fag in hand, to get to the other bit, or the outside door, or the loos, the idea being that it’s only for a minute, so why would you mind?
4. The previous bit about open-plan premises.
5. The problem of food serving areas. The smokers will want to eat: they’ll take their fags with them of course – well it’s only for a minute, isn’t it, until I stub this one out, it’s not like you’re actually going to notice, is it?
No, the only thing that might work is separate smokers’ buildings. Even then they’d manage to cross-contaminate them.
Best leave things as they are.
“Cross-contaminate” ?? Jesus wept. It’s tobacco smoke, not fucking anthrax.
Just to reiterate for the thousandth time, the smoking ban ISN’T ABOUT HEALTH. It’s about all sorts of things – such as money, power, control – but not health. And, if left unchallenged, it will act as a precedent.
Will you be so accepting of the state’s benevolent destruction of our freedoms (er, ‘lifestyle advice’) when the object is alcohol rather than tobacco? How about the food you like to eat? How about if any particular aspect of life you happen to enjoy is suddenly deemed verboten, and both the activity and the participant (you) are subjected to a relentless tsunami of vilifying propaganda? Will you then begin to question the motives of those behind such intrusions? Will you then begin to wonder if the health of one single person has actually been improved by the imposition of perverted and divisive legislation?
The above is already happening, so perhaps you’ll get to find out.