One aspect of the ban is potentially very damaging to folk clubs - especially when the weather is warmer. Club rooms, nicely secluded "round the back" may well experience a lot more noise from the garden, courtyard etc. Windows and doors closed instead of open could make life pretty uncomfortable.

There was an assumption that once the ban was introduced, smokers would go outside for a ciggy much as they probably have been doing at work and then come back inside again for the general social interaction. However this is not what is happening. Smokers and non-smokers were not necessarily segregated before, so the mixed groups (friends, families etc)who continue to enjoy each other's company now do so outside for prolonged periods (or even all night, if there are heaters and reasonable shelter). I know some bars which are completely empty for large parts of the evening because literally everyone, smoker or not, is staying outside. Curiously, in view of the supposed purpose of the ban, this exposes people to much greater
risk from passive smoking because they remain longer in a more confined space with a lot more smokers - and without the benefit of air exchange systems ...

And they can make a lot of din. As I see it the ban was largely based on some pretty dodgy research which implied that if pubs, clubs etc were non-smoking vast numbers, previously excluded, would flock to them. That simply ain't happening - non-smokers who went to pubs before now find them more pleasant, naturally; smokers don't, so the big indoor occasions are less popular than before.

Our social club has a big telly, cheap beer, etc, and our bar takings are seriously down. The smaller pubs in our locality are also struggling because the smoking ban has affected their established community. Some of them have spent lavishly on outdoor facilities.
They won't have money to spend inside when it's needed. And how green is heating the outdoors ?

Sorry - went on a bit! I just feel that some friendly pubs are becoming less so (smokers exiled to the garden getting louder and more aggressive as the winter sets in) and the advantage of secluded rooms upstairs, at the back, may increasingly be lost to the change in habits of the general pub clientele.

Henry