Total Smoking Ban in the UK

iguana

It's just been voted in, Hooray!!!

Litcagral

iguana wrote:

It's just been voted in, Hooray!!!

What? Smoking has been totally banned everywhere. Will we have groups of British people coming over here to have a pull?:D

limerick_man

yay, thats good news.. is it the same as our ban??

monkeyfudge

Oh great.. now The Smoking Room will be cancelled on BBC3...

I really liked that show.

Toy

I hear alot of complaining that the legislation will be unworkable, sounds familiar!

I think it's the same 'workplace ban' but I'm open to correction on that.

Litcagral

Toy wrote:

I think it's the same 'workplace ban' but I'm open to correction on that.

Yes, more or less. The OP makes it sound like smoking itself has been banned.

ziggy

This post has been deleted.

Smurfpiss

"In other news tourism in wales and scotland has trebled....." *














*not actually true.

Mossy Monk

Smurfpiss wrote:

"In other news tourism in wales and scotland has trebled....."

not true as you said but the Scottish ban is due to begin in April

iguana

Sorry, your right I got carried away in my excitement. A total ban in all indoor, non-residential workplace's. More-or-less the exact same as in Ireland.

And Smurfpiss, Scotland voted for a complete ban last year, as did Northern Ireland. Wales is due to vote on a complete ban soon. England was the only one doubtful of the blanket ban in pubs and clubs not serving food.

It won't come in for another 15 months or so, but at least it is coming.

Blisterman

That's cool. I'm sick of my clothes smelling of smoke.

Pal

good.

smoking stinks.

I know. I'm a smoker.

flogen

ziggy67 wrote:

Its not a "total ban on smoking in the UK", it is only in England. And it is only to ban smoking from all pubs and private members' clubs in England
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/4709258.stm

And all workplaces (that's something that was agreed on a while back, this is just an ammendment).

The British Parliment has also agreed to bring a ban into NI (it's the only thing the 4 main parties agree on) and Wales Assembly will also have the choice (or did they vote already?)

Terry

great. if we have to suffer then everyone else should.

murphaph

flogen wrote:

The British Parliment has also agreed to bring a ban into NI (it's the only thing the 4 main parties agree on) and Wales Assembly will also have the choice (or did they vote already?)

This vote today covers England & Wales. The Welsh assembly is the weakest of the 'devolved' talking shops.

Wertz

iguana wrote:

And Smurfpiss, Scotland voted for a complete ban last year, as did Northern Ireland.

Bzzzzzt!
NI didn't vote for the ban since Stormont has been in mothballs since the spying fiasco...it was imposed by Westminister and was a sure indicator that England was going to go for the all out approach all along....no matter what Labour said to the contrary.

funk-you

Fu(kin typical, i'm moving to london soon and was looking forward to enjoying a smoke with my pint again. ****.

senordingdong

Good stuff.
I'm sure it's the workplace rule. It's the only way they can bring it in without infringing civial rights or some such jazz.

Esel

"We are not-wimps!"

Ban it before EU forces you to ban it.

Or [cough] something like that [/cough]

jimmycrackcorm

However, Simon Clark, director of smoking support group Forest, said: "This is a double whammy and an unnecessary and illiberal piece of legislation that denies freedom of choice to millions of people.

yeah freedom to poison us non-smokers.

Nice to see the brits follow is Irish for a change...

senordingdong

jimmycrackcorm wrote:

yeah freedom to poison us non-smokers.

I'm all for the ban, but statements like this piss me off.

Jimi-Spandex

jimmycrackcorm wrote:

yeah freedom to poison us non-smokers.

Zing!

:rolleyes:

Megatron

jimmycrackcorm wrote:

yeah freedom to poison us non-smokers.

Ok leaving out the venom in that post , Take a look at the freedom the Goverment has given , but also look at the freedom it has taken away from the other parties.

I wouldn't be surpirsed that in a few years ( say 10 - 15 at a guess) that they will ban drink as well.

Simplily becuase more ilness's are related to drink not to mention accidents and the like ..

Well saying that they still pull in far too much money from drink , but you i hope you get my point.

I live up in Glasgow , so i've gotten used to be able to smoke in the pubs , but now i'm gona have to get used to going outside again

seamus

Megatron wrote:

I wouldn't be surpirsed that in a few years ( say 10 - 15 at a guess) that they will ban drink as well.

Not a chance. Putting aside the taxation aspect, Irish Governments have only ever been interested in one thing - keeping their jobs. You could be sure that a ban on drink within our generation's lifetime (next 50-60 years) would be the end of any Government.

I'm delighted this is going ahead. I'm in London a lot, and there's nothing worse than only having a weekend bag of clothes, and having to wash some of your clothes cos you spent 20 minutes in a pub.

Red Alert

why is blair such a wimp anyway. wasn't he actually against the ban?

Megatron

Red Alert wrote:

why is blair such a wimp anyway. wasn't he actually against the ban?

No he was for the Blanket ban all along. ( or so says the paper and any web report i've read)

Peace

seamus wrote:

You could be sure that a ban on drink within our generation's lifetime (next 50-60 years) would be the end of any Government.

And society as we know it!

Man the utopia that would follow would be unbearable!

Megatron

seamus wrote:

Not a chance. Putting aside the taxation aspect, Irish Governments have only ever been interested in one thing - keeping their jobs. You could be sure that a ban on drink within our generation's lifetime (next 50-60 years) would be the end of any Government.

I'm delighted this is going ahead. I'm in London a lot, and there's nothing worse than only having a weekend bag of clothes, and having to wash some of your clothes cos you spent 20 minutes in a pub.

but they have set the precedent ( spelling ? ) , so it will be "in our best interest of health and safety" to ban the following....

It's not the no smoking in pubs that pee's me off , it the fact that the goverment decided that this was right and that was the end of it.

rubadub

julep wrote:

great. if we have to suffer then everyone else should.

shouldnt that be "if we don't have to suffer"
Or are you talking of the plight of poor people who have to burn plant matter outdoors now. Lots of people cannot take their drug of choice anywhere.

Megatron wrote:

I wouldn't be surpirsed that in a few years ( say 10 - 15 at a guess) that they will ban drink as well.

Never a total ban. They already do have similar drink bans though. You cannot drink on the street and in most public places would would be asked not to drink.

seamus

Megatron wrote:

but they have set the precedent ( spelling ? ) , so it will be "in our best interest of health and safety" to ban the following....

It's a bit different though. The cigarette ban is for the protection of others. It's safe to say that if you light up a cigarette in a workplace (yes, I'm talking about the Irish ban here), that you're having a negative effect on the staff in that workplace.
If you take a drink in a workplace, it's not safe to say that anyone's health or safety is at risk. In an extreme minority of cases, excess of alcohol may lead to a danger to the safety of others (via violence or accidents), but there is usually more at play in such cases - the alcohol is just a catalyst. The difference is that every single time you light up in the presence of others, you have a negative impact on their health.

No-one's stopping you from smoking, just stopping you from forcing the rest of us to breathe your smoke.

Kojak

Its nice to see the english following our example for a change.

They are up in arms at the moment - they cant seem to understand the reason for it.

In my opinion the smoking ban is a good thing.

Megatron

seamus wrote:

No-one's stopping you from smoking, just stopping you from forcing the rest of us to breathe your smoke.

That is true , however they stopping us from having a choice of where we should use a Legal Product .

This is the point i'm trying to get across ( badly it would seem )

Once they do it once , they can do it as many times as they want.

seamus

Megatron wrote:

That is true , however they stopping us from having a choice of where we should use a Legal Product .

This is the point i'm trying to get across ( badly it would seem )

Once they do it once , they can do it as many times as they want.

Only in a certain capacity though. In actuality, the precedent has been set a long time ago, in terms of banning things. This is a workplace law, not a substance law, despite the hoo-ha and the praise from the anti-smoking lobby.

Unlike laws which govern banned substances (such as cocaine), this particular law doesn't restrict your freedom to choose to smoke. What it does is add law to the existing conditions of employment, guaranteeing certain rights to employees as regards the condition of their workplace. Another similar law insists that the workplace be maintained at a comfortable temperature (~18 degrees iirc). This particular one can be signed away by contract, but would you say that this is stamping on the freedom of those employees (from the Middle East for example) who are more comfortable in a warmer environment?

It really only sets a precedent as you suggest, if the proposed ban can be justified as a health benefit for employees. Indeed, it is true that it restricts your choice of where you may partake in this activity, but then that's quite fundamental to society. You've never been allowed to do what you want, where you want. You can't drive on a footpath. You can't drink in public. You can't drag race on a public road. You can't hold a sporting event in a private park (without permission), etc etc.

dundalk cailin

Any word of France introducing it anytime before July??

Ickle Magoo

jimmycrackcorm wrote:

yeah freedom to poison us non-smokers.

Nice to see the brits follow is Irish for a change...

Actually, the vote was for England & Wales...the rest of the UK had already voted for a total ban at the same time as Ireland - this vote just meant that the whole of the UK would now have the smoking ban...come March, Scotland will have the smoking ban in place & Northern Ireland had already voted to follow suit in 2007.....:D

iguana

Megatron wrote:

I wouldn't be surpirsed that in a few years ( say 10 - 15 at a guess) that they will ban drink as well.

Simplily becuase more ilness's are related to drink not to mention accidents and the like ..

Would this be the same government that recently introduced legislation allowing for alcohol to be sold 24 hours a day? I doubt they will be banning it anytime soon!

Megatron wrote:

That is true , however they stopping us from having a choice of where we should use a Legal Product .

This is the point i'm trying to get across ( badly it would seem )

Well, although legal in certain places I'm pretty sure I would get in trouble for defecating on a bus. No matter how much I was dying to go.

Megatron wrote:

I live up in Glasgow , so i've gotten used to be able to smoke in the pubs , but now i'm gona have to get used to going outside again

I live in London and had gotten used to not having a sore throat everytime I went out, after living with the ban in Dublin for 15 months. Excuse my lack of pity for you being asked to take the non-smokers around you into consideration.

EOA_Mushy

jimmycrackcorm wrote:

yeah freedom to poison us non-smokers.

Yup, and we will still get you on the street!!!! HAHAHAHAHA

EOA_Mushy

iguana wrote:

Well, although legal in certain places I'm pretty sure I would get in trouble for defecating on a bus. No matter how much I was dying to go.

In trouble maby, but it would not be completly ilegal, one could argue.
(although the reason may be fuel for the fire, figure it out your self)

Flukey

Like in the Republic of Ireland, smoking is not being banned in England, as many people like to portray it. You can still smoke as much as you want here, but not in certain places, so it hasn't been banned and smoking won't be banned in the England either. There are lots of lies around the smoking ban. They say smokers are being forced to go outside or not allowed in pubs. That is not true. A smoker can spend all day in the pub, but just not smoke there.

They say smokers are forced to go outside to smoke, which is not true either. Before or since the ban started, I have never seen anyone going up to anyone in a pub and say "You, get a packet of cigarettes, take one out and go outside and smoke it." Have you ever seen that happen? I doubt it. So no one is forcing them to go outside. It is purely their own choice. To say any different is pure fiction.

They say it is discriminating against smokers which is also not true. Nobody is allowed to smoke in the pubs, so it applies to everyone. How can something that applies to everyone be called discriminatory? Whether you want to smoke or not is irrelevant, the law still applies to you. You may never want to rob a bank or murder someone, but it is still illegal for you to do so. The law applies to you just as much as it does to the professional criminal. The smoking ban applies just as much to non-smokers as it does to smokers, so no one is being discriminated against, or do you think that criminals should be allowed to murder people or rob banks if they want to?

They say places are not being provided for smokers. That also is not true. They can smoke outside. There is moving air there and they will get all sorts of different weathers, so they have a fully air-conditioned, all-weather smoking area. What more could they want?

They say it is not fair to send people outside in the cold and rain. As I said already, no one is forcing them to go outside, it is their own choice. Also, if they are not worried about lung cancer and other smoking-related diseases, a bit of pneumonia certainly isn't going to concern them. It would be a bit ironic if smokers complained about having to go outside on health grounds, now wouldn't it?

Don't forget too, that the law is being brought in primarily to help those that have to work in the previously smokey environments. As a bonus the customers benefit too.

The law is not there to victimise smokers or launch some vendetta on them, as some people like to portray it. It is not there as a bigotted or intolerant measure aimed at smokers. It was not put in place because people smoke, but because of the hazards that environmental tobacco smoke has. It is designed to completely remove the smoke, not the smokers. Smokers are as welcome in pubs and other enclosed workplaces as they ever were. It is a health measure aimed at tackling the smoke, not the smokers. Smokers may be inconvenienced by it, but the common good, from which they too will benefit, comes first. That is the way things are in most societies. So it is not intolerant or bigotted.

So when you look at it, it is a very fair, non-discriminatory, healthy, free to choose law and everyone benefits from it. You can't say that about many laws. Now, stick that in your pipe and smoke it, but please go outside first.

senordingdong

EOA_Mushy wrote:

Yup, and we will still get you on the street!!!! HAHAHAHAHA

We won't have to. Vehicle exhausts are lethal enough.

Davei141

We get to hear poor publicans cry about the end of the pub as we know it, and old guys saying "Im 80 and ive been smoking all my life, aint done me any harm.", again.

Ickle Magoo

Flukey wrote:

Like in the Republic of Ireland, smoking is not being banned in England

Of course not, but "smoking ban" is just much easier to say than "banning smoking in public places and in private members clubs"......and the majority of people know what is being referred to....

dimerocks

thats great. i was in andora at the start of the year and couldn't get used to people smoking in doors it was weird i thought.

Red Alert

i'm really glad there's a ban. what gives anyone the right to give off noxious toxic odours indoors? it's so much easier to go out when you know your clothes won't stink.

ciaran76

Excellent news. I was/am going over to England a good bit with work and football and was starting to really get annoyed having to go to pubs after a game as my eyes couldn't take it or my lungs.

Now I can enjoy a pint or 2.