Where did people tap their ash before the smoking ban?

bmwguy · 16-04-2015 07:25AM

Watch reeling in the years. People smoked everywhere. Newsreaders, guests on Today Tonight having a serious political debate, intercounty GAA players when they were subs in dugouts.

Ghost Buster · 16-04-2015 07:46AM

BetterThanThou wrote: »

Now, I'm quite naive on this subject, as I would've only been 7 or 8 when the ban was introduced, and never really took any notice. Obviously, in a bar or restaurant, they simply would have tapped it in an ash tray. But what about the likes of shops, where someone isn't stationary? Were people generally allowed smoke in them? Were there ash trays all over the place? Did people simply tap their ash on the floor? I'm genuinely curious about this.

Many smokers dont equate their detritus with litter. They tapped the ash wherevever they liked.

volchitsa · 16-04-2015 08:49AM

SuperS54 wrote: »

I remember taking a Spanish airline to Malaga when most airlines had already banned smoking, maybe Futura, and being delighted that they had a smoking section, signed up to that. What a mistake! The ability to smoke at will was great however the pall of smoke cutting the eyes from your head was horrific in the enclosed cabin, had a massive headache midway through the flight as well. The smoking "area" was defined by moveable signs on the side wall depending on how many smokers there were, there was no physical barrier with the rest of the plane. I was near the front of the "area" and the flight must have been pure hell for those sitting at the back of the non smoking area. Of course the intelligent smokers booked seats up front and then came back to stand in the smoking "area" to have their cigarette before exiting smoghell/cancerville and returning to their seats. I was up front for the return flight and actually didn't smoke at all.

There never was a physical barrier between smoking and no-smoking zones in any airline I ever flew on.

As long as you actually didn't smoke at all I can forgive you!

But for a non smoker the absolute worst thing about it was the smokers you mention, who took up places in the non smoking zone, leaving anyone who hadn't booked months in advance to have to take a seat in the smoking zone, and suffer not only the smoke of the smokers sitting around us, but also that of the others who would leave their carefully-chosen seats in the no-smoking area to come and smoke into our faces. I fking hated those gits.

MarkY91 · 16-04-2015 08:57AM

My childhood memory of pubs is a cloud of smoke that was too much for me for a long period of time. I was like 13 when the ban came so I never got to experience clubs with smoking here. I did experience it in Cyprus and while dancing, i got a burn to the arm which was annoying. I'm glad the ban had been introduced

Menas · 16-04-2015 09:00AM

volchitsa wrote: »

There never was a physical barrier between smoking and no-smoking zones in any airline I ever flew on.
.

Most commonly it was the back 5 rows were smoking seats. No physical barrier that I ever saw except one TWA flight.
But any smokers who were not in those seats could just walk down and stand bye those seats and smoke.
If you were a non-smoker in a seat 6 rows back it was pretty bad. Especially with nervous flyers who would just chain smoke the entire flight.

biko · 16-04-2015 09:42AM

When I was in Egypt many years ago I could smoke inside a bank.
It was the weirdest thing.

5starpool · 16-04-2015 09:52AM

I was on one return flight where smoking was allowed. It was my first time on a plane (1996) on a charter to Spain when it was very rare even then to allow smoking on a flight. The back 5/6 rows was the smoking area and I wasn't that close to it, but it still stank. Thankfully it's not anything I'll ever experience again. I very vaguely remember smoking in cinemas in the early 80's too, but a cinema visit was a rarity back then.

As for clubs/pubs, the smell of the old carpets in pubs the first few weeks after the ban was vile. Years of stinky smoke and spilled beer on top of the farts/BO that was seemingly very evident then was awful. I think most places that had carpets saw the error of their ways and got rid of them fairly sharpish.

volchitsa · 16-04-2015 10:02AM

biko wrote: »

When I was in Egypt many years ago I could smoke inside a bank.
It was the weirdest thing.

x
What's even odder, IMO, is that someone can say this - how quickly something becomes the norm and people feel it's always been that way. When I was growing up (ok, it's some years ago now, but not that many!!) people smoked in banks in Ireland, and no-one batted an eyelid. I remember being in shops and banks with my father, when he and others just smoked away.

In the car too. It was like wiping your nose - people did it whenever they felt the need, no matter where they were. So your "many years ago" in Egypt can't have been that long after it became unacceptable in Ireland, yet long enough for you to find it strange.

jenny rennie · 16-04-2015 10:03AM

My mother smoked in the antenatal wards after giving birth to me & my brother, I'm 30, by the time she had my sister who's 25 they had to use a smoking room downstairs.

jenny rennie · 16-04-2015 10:03AM

My mother smoked in the antenatal wards after giving birth to me & my brother, I'm 30, by the time she had my sister who's 25 they had to use a smoking room downstairs.

ThisRegard · 16-04-2015 10:05AM

Deleted User wrote: »

Does anyone remember the biggest side-effect of the smoking ban in pubs and clubs?

You could actually smell the places, once the smell of smoke was gone. And they stank to high heavens. The smell of sweat, of the toilets, of farts, and of incredibly bad B.O. The first few weeks were horrible.

That was greatly exaggerated, unless you went to kips.

MarkAnthony wrote: »

The Blanchardstown centre didn't ban smoking until very late on, might have been all the way up to the smoking ban. Always thought that was a bit odd.

Not odd, just wrong by you.

denhaagenite · 16-04-2015 10:52AM

They had thigh high bin things with a tray on the top of them, sometimes filled with sand. You still see them sometimes in pub/ shop doorways. Little aluminium ashtrays if there was a table or counter.

There's a smoking room in my husbands office in Germany, with cigar vending machines and leather couches. It's hilarious, like Mad Men or Boogie Nights :pac:.

Buona Fortuna · 16-04-2015 10:57AM

Desolation Of Smug wrote: »

I did. I used to walk in everywhere with a cigarette.

I had a Saturday job in a shop. We use to smoke whenever we wanted, serving customers, whatever.

Them were days

The Corinthian · 16-04-2015 11:04AM

Twenty to thirty years ago, you could smoke in lots of places.

Top deck of a bus.
Cinema (I think at the back).
Pubs.
Restaurants (there would be a section anyway)
At work; first office I worked in everyone smoked. By about 1999, you couldn't smoke at your desk, but you'd often have a smoking room.
Indoors in university (even in the lecture halls, but not during lectures).
Trains and planes.

Spain was insane for smoking, twenty years ago - supermarkets had ashtrays at the end of every aisle. Even schools.

And I have no idea what planet the person who claimed no one walked with a cigarette was living on. Plenty of people did.

kylith · 16-04-2015 11:09AM

SuperS54 wrote: »

I remember taking a Spanish airline to Malaga when most airlines had already banned smoking, maybe Futura, and being delighted that they had a smoking section, signed up to that. What a mistake! The ability to smoke at will was great however the pall of smoke cutting the eyes from your head was horrific in the enclosed cabin, had a massive headache midway through the flight as well. The smoking "area" was defined by moveable signs on the side wall depending on how many smokers there were, there was no physical barrier with the rest of the plane. I was near the front of the "area" and the flight must have been pure hell for those sitting at the back of the non smoking area. Of course the intelligent smokers booked seats up front and then came back to stand in the smoking "area" to have their cigarette before exiting smoghell/cancerville and returning to their seats. I was up front for the return flight and actually didn't smoke at all.

Ironically the air quality in planes is worse since they banned smoking on them. When people could smoke they had to actually bring in fresh air, but these days they don't have to worry about pumping smoke around the cabin so they recirculate it.

volchitsa · 16-04-2015 11:21AM

kylith wrote: »

Ironically the air quality in planes is worse since they banned smoking on them. When people could smoke they had to actually bring in fresh air, but these days they don't have to worry about pumping smoke around the cabin so they recirculate it.

I heard this recently too (I hope it wasn't simply on here and we're both repeating the same single claim!) but if true it seems inevitable that viruses etc are recirculated inside the cabin, increasing the risk of falling ill after a plane journey.

I can't help thinking that if it is true though, it would be fairly easy to remedy - so why wouldn't airlines do so? Early adopters could even make a selling point out of it.

kylith · 16-04-2015 11:25AM

volchitsa wrote: »

I heard this recently too (I hope it wasn't simply on here and we're both repeating the same single claim!) but if true it seems inevitable that viruses etc are recirculated inside the cabin, increasing the risk of falling ill after a plane journey.

I can't help thinking that if it is true though, it would be fairly easy to remedy - so why wouldn't airlines do so? Early adopters could even make a selling point out of it.

I've definitely heard it more than once, and not on here.

It's cheaper the recirculate, AFAIK. If they're bringing in fresh air they'd presumably have to spend money heating it up a bit. It gets chilly at 35,000 feet, or so I've heard.

Pumpkinseeds · 16-04-2015 11:25AM

Turtyturd wrote: »

Nobody smoked in shops, which makes those clowns who walk around shops with their e-cigs look like even bigger clowns.

Or the fcukwits who use e-cigs on buses or GP's waiting rooms.

MrWalsh · 16-04-2015 11:33AM

My husbands GP used to smoke at his desk with patients there. It seems mad now. There was a smoking room for senior students in his secondary school.

I can remember people smoking in cinemas, on buses, on flights - it all seemed normal. My first job out of college there was a smoking room and it hadnt been too long since people had smoked at their desks.

volchitsa · 16-04-2015 11:36AM

Turtyturd wrote: »

Nobody smoked in shops, which makes those clowns who walk around shops with their e-cigs look like even bigger clowns.

Yes they certainly did, until the 80s at least, and I'd guess well into the 90s. People smoked in restaurants, and sometimes took it very badly if they were asked to sit in a reserved smoking section, because other people's smoke bothered them!

The only places smoking was generally banned as opposed to having smoking areas set up for them, which were not always respected) before the actual ban was public buildings such as hospitals and schools, and places where public health was involved such as restaurant kitchens.

Smokers used to just light up in other people's houses, and be quite insulted if asked not to - and when they did smoke outside (if the weather was good enough, and only when forced to) would then drop their butts wherever they were in the garden or whatever. Someone with that attitude to their smoking habit was not going to waste a perfectly good ciggie just because they wanted a quick peek in a shop!

Egginacup · 16-04-2015 11:42AM

Deleted User wrote: »

Does anyone remember the biggest side-effect of the smoking ban in pubs and clubs?

You could actually smell the places, once the smell of smoke was gone. And they stank to high heavens. The smell of sweat, of the toilets, of farts, and of incredibly bad B.O. The first few weeks were horrible.

Utter myth.

When I used to go to the pub during the smoking years and someone stank of B.O. or farted, you could damn well smell it.

When the smoking ban came in and I went to the pub and it was crowded I couldn't smell, all of a sudden, a thousand farts, feet and armpits.

Cigarette smoke doesn't make these smells somehow disappear or mask them in anyway.

I don't hear any cock and bull stories of when the ban came in somehow women were passing out from the onslaught of aftershave fumes or men's eyes were watering from the overwhelming aroma of ladies' perfume.

Load of bollocks

Aint Eazy Being Cheezy · 16-04-2015 11:49AM

denhaagenite wrote: »

There's a smoking room in my husbands office in Germany, with cigar vending machines and leather couches.

Haha no way, Aongus's wife!!

Hello Mrs Von Bismarck

The Backwards Man · 16-04-2015 11:54AM

The Cunning Linguist wrote: »

Haha no way, Aongus's wife!!

Hello Mrs Von Bismarck

Aongus' office wouldn't have a vending machine, they'd have a cigar boy to cut and light and deash the very best cigars money can buy.

fleet_admiral · 16-04-2015 11:58AM

I remember going for a pint on the day of the smoking ban. All I could smell in the pub was stale cigarettes and Guinness farts

denhaagenite · 16-04-2015 12:04PM

If I was his wife I probably wouldn't be so surprised about it. It would be unthinkable not to have a cigar boy, at home and in the office.

Greenmachine · 16-04-2015 12:11PM

I remember certain bars in Dublin City still smelling of smoke for weeks after the ban came into force. I remember mid 90's a lot of people still smoked upstairs on buses even though it wasn't allowed at this point. Only time in recent years I have seen people try that on is on the night-link. Again mid 90's certain shops selling single cigarettes. One more was going on a school trip to see a stage production, I think for the play, "The Field", a few of us, found the student smoking room for senior students. It is fair to say our teachers were non too impressed.

Egginacup · 16-04-2015 12:19PM

MrWalsh wrote: »

My husbands GP used to smoke at his desk with patients there. It seems mad now. There was a smoking room for senior students in his secondary school.

I can remember people smoking in cinemas, on buses, on flights - it all seemed normal. My first job out of college there was a smoking room and it hadnt been too long since people had smoked at their desks.

When I was in college we often used to head up to Leo Burdock's by Christchurch for a nosh up. It was cheap, plentiful and excellent (unlike now!).

The old boy used to be there working the chips, with a pint of Guinness perched next to him and a Sweet Afton smouldering away in his mouth.

MrWalsh · 16-04-2015 12:21PM

Egginacup wrote: »

The old boy used to be there working the chips, with a pint of Guinness perched next to him and a Sweet Afton smouldering away in his mouth.

Oh you just reminded me of the canteen ladies in my teenage job - theyd be stirring the pot of stew or curry with fag hanging off lip while nattering away to each other.

jimgoose · 16-04-2015 12:23PM

Egginacup wrote: »

...The old boy used to be there working the chips, with a pint of Guinness perched next to him and a Sweet Afton smouldering away in his mouth.

Tellin' ya, hard to beat that for seasoning! :pac:

Egginacup · 16-04-2015 12:41PM

jimgoose wrote: »

Tellin' ya, hard to beat that for seasoning! :pac:

The lounge-girl from the pub used to come round and just walk past the queue, in behind the counter and plop a full Guinness beside him, no words spoken, and then just scurry off out again. Respect!

Where did people tap their ash before the smoking ban?

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