UK Gov to Introduce Smoking Ban?

mike65

Just when "fly-away" smokers thought they were safe...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/3852149.stm

http://news.scotsman.com/uk.cfm?id=747592004

http://www.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30000-13144488,00.html

Weekend breaks to Paris and Amsterdam to become even more popular?

Mike.

leeroybrown

At least this should address some of the issues (genuine for a change) publicans in border regions are having with the loss of business across to the north.

grumpytrousers

I'd be quite surprised if Tony and Co introduced such a ban. The Labour Govt is unpopular enough as things are without antagonising the electorate even more.

Consider other measures that Labour have introduced or considered introducing (longer opening hours, declassifying certain drugs etc) and they'd find it quite difficult to rise above the cries of 'Hypocrites' from the usual suspects.

leeroybrown

I wonder how the Police Chief's for larger urban areas will respond to this? Some UK areas seem to have serious problems with street violence without having half the pub/club patrons in and out all night long and hanging around outside smoking.

DublinWriter

It won't happen. Just look at the mess they made of the anti hunting with dogs bill, and that was one of the definates on their original manifesto.

Don't forget that Ken Livingstone is partial to the occassional cigar!

...and remember their fiasco over allowing tobacco companies to sponsor Formula One?

Nope, I'm puffing away here, looking forward to my relocation to London later this year.

grumpytrousers

Aye, the Brits have a thing about not wanting a Nanny State; in addition, a lot of pubs in the UK (well - Weatherspoons anyway) tend to have No Smoking areas, which (get this) seem to work, so assuming they made such areas compulsory in every boozer, there'd be no need for the outright ban.

DublinWriter

Aye Aye, plus a lot of pubs over there (esp Weatherspoons) also have proper Air Conditioning and Filtering units and don't allow smoking at the bar.

The greedy VFI here panicked and only proposed putting units in after the ban was proposed.

grumpytrousers

Aye Aye, plus a lot of pubs over there (esp Weatherspoons) also have proper Air Conditioning and Filtering units and don't allow smoking at the bar.

The greedy VFI here panicked and only proposed putting units in after the ban was proposed.

Right, I'm no fan of the greedy pocket lining numbnuts at the VFI, but in fairness (and probably motivated by the fear of a downturn in trade) they did offer to put in these unts which, by the sounds of things, you've experienced in the UK and probably seen to be quite effective. In other words, the concept of having non-smoking zones in pubs was workable in the real world, but just our politicians didn't want to know.

The wetherspoons approach should be made mandatory in the UK over the next, say, five years. When you consider that sod all pubs are owned by private concerns, but either breweries or leisure companies, it can't hurt the bottom line too much.

Sherlock

Theres as much chance of having succesful smoking areas in pubs as having areas in swimming pools where people can pee in the water without bothering anyone else.
You can bet that if pubs were allowed having smoking areas provided they had beefed up air conditioning publicans would have it switched off most of the time because people complain of being frozen.That was the experience in my local (Old Orchard in Rathfarnham), now its much more comfortable with clean air.Total ban is much easier, everyone knows where they stand.

grumpytrousers

Theres as much chance of having succesful smoking areas in pubs as having areas in swimming pools where people can pee in the water without bothering anyone else.

It's all in the enforcement, isn't it? Wetherspoons in England made their smoke free zones a selling point and thus they had air-con switched on all the time. It attracts plenty of non-smokers - on a busy night, you'll only get a spare seat(s) in the smoking zone.

I can't comment on your local down Rathfarnham way, but I have had pints in wetherspoon pubs (both sections) and have found that the zone thing does work.

I'm not getting into the 'we were right to have a ban in Ireland' debate, 'cos that ones over, but rather am engaging in the 'UK should do the same', and my point remains that certain pubs have proven to the mind of this sometime smoker that you CAN do the zone thing. The 'smokers-should-not-be-tolerated-at-all-costs' brigade will, no doubt, rush in and say it can't, but in a country where the ownership of pubs and the culture of manager/landlord not necessarily being a local means that the weatherspoons approach could work

Cork

Originally posted by leeroybrown
At least this should address some of the issues (genuine for a change) publicans in border regions are having with the loss of business across to the north.

Well, the ban has got accepted by society.

The world did indeed continue after the ban without massive job losses in the industry.

For a while there - I was expecting pubs to be closing all over the place.