42 days to no smoking (UK)

Subject: RE: 42 days to no smoking (UK)
From: George Papavgeris
Date: 04 Jul 07 - 11:56 AM

It would be similar to hotels: Individual rooms could be assigned as smoking rooms, and if the smoker has one of those, it's OK. But all common areas are smoke-free.

Subject: RE: 42 days to no smoking (UK)
From: GUEST,GEUST
Date: 04 Jul 07 - 11:52 AM

just curious..
anyone know how the new law relates to smokers
living in private rented shared accomodation
with communal kitchens/ bathrooms / living-rooms ?

Subject: RE: 42 days to no smoking (UK)
From: skipy
Date: 04 Jul 07 - 11:10 AM

Dave, I do intend to discuss this with him, but as I work in a village 5 miles from home & the pub, I am not likely to bang into him for sometime to come, however the subject will be broached & discussed in full as soon as practicle.
He is a non smoker by the way, however the landlady smokes.
Skipy

Subject: RE: 42 days to no smoking (UK)
From: Alice
Date: 04 Jul 07 - 10:50 AM

Employees of smoky businesses were almost 6 times more
likely to have detectable levels of the carcinogen in their
urine. And those levels seem to grow about 6 percent for
every hour they were at work, Stark said. Once someone
inhales NNK, it takes up to 45 days for signs of the
carcinogen to leave their body.
Stark noted that restaurant and bar workers tend to be
younger women with lower incomes and sometimes no health
insurance, a population vulnerable to health problems.
Working amid smoke raises their risk not only for lung
cancer but also breast cancer, heart attack, premature birth
and other health problems.

Read the whole article here Click here "Even within a brief work shift, we can see increasing levels of this potent lung carcinogen,

Subject: RE: 42 days to no smoking (UK)
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 04 Jul 07 - 10:49 AM

Having a smoking area and a non smoking area next to each other is a bit like having the gents urinals draining directly into the public swimming pool. No matter what you do you will get some smoke in the no smoking area. The grey smelly stuff can neither read nor stop at imaginary boundries. If for one minute you believe that either the private landlords or the big breweries would spend many thousands of pounds installing proper ventilation to ensure that this would not happen you are deluding yourself, skipy. They nevr have before, they will not start overnight. Given the choice of running pub with a no-cost smoking 'ban' or being forced to spend megabucks, what choice do you think most people would make?

Did you ever ask your landlords what they had ever done to safeguard their non-smoking customers and staff btw? You said you would but never got back. I guessed that the answer would be either very little or bugger all!

Cheers

Dave

Subject: RE: 42 days to no smoking (UK)
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 04 Jul 07 - 10:47 AM

But it didn't happen did it? The pubs were mostly converted to open plan, with perhaps one part of the open area being called "non smoking", which didn't do anything to stop them getting smoked up.

Basically people who don't like the idea of having to pop outside if they want to smoke should be blaming the landlords and the pub owners for failing to ensure that there were proper smoke free areas, not the non-smoking majority who have been denied smoke free areas all these years.

Subject: RE: 42 days to no smoking (UK)
From: skipy
Date: 04 Jul 07 - 10:27 AM

No, it's not at all, you sit in one bar, I sit in another, we are both happy & so is the landlord!
Skipy

Subject: RE: 42 days to no smoking (UK)
From: Alice
Date: 04 Jul 07 - 10:22 AM

I know you don't own them. It is still a self absorbed point of view.

Subject: RE: 42 days to no smoking (UK)
From: George Papavgeris
Date: 04 Jul 07 - 10:12 AM

Thanks for that gracious post, Backwoodsman. Next pint's on me!

Subject: RE: 42 days to no smoking (UK)
From: skipy
Date: 04 Jul 07 - 10:08 AM

By My locals, I simply mean the venues that are local to my domicile, I have no ownership claim on them, never did have, never will have & never meant to imply such.
Skipy

Subject: RE: 42 days to no smoking (UK)
From: Alice
Date: 04 Jul 07 - 09:58 AM

Skipy, your answer proves how self abosorbed you are ... "my locals"... this is about all, not just yours.

Subject: RE: 42 days to no smoking (UK)
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 04 Jul 07 - 09:58 AM

It really does seem to me that anyone who really accepted that "non-smokers' rights are just as important as theirs" and recognised that their smoking caused real discomfort to others, would make a point of going outside of any shared room in order to smoke, even where there was no legal requirement to do so.

Sitting just behind the line across a room between smoking and non-smoking areas just wouldn't be good enough, given the way smoke ignores boundaries like that.

Good manners and consideration for others should have meant there would have been no demand for a law and no need for one.

Subject: RE: 42 days to no smoking (UK)
From: skipy
Date: 04 Jul 07 - 09:55 AM

Most of the staff at both my locals smoke! The only problem with seperate bars would be that they would argue about who is working the none smoking bar!
Skipy

Subject: RE: 42 days to no smoking (UK)
From: Alice
Date: 04 Jul 07 - 09:52 AM

You still keep thinking separate bars protect non-smokers rights? This is about employees, mainly,
as they are the ones worst impacted by second hand smoke when they have to breathe it
while serving smokers, day in and day out, all through their shift. Having to go into a separate room
full of smoke is not protecting their rights.

Subject: RE: 42 days to no smoking (UK)
From: skipy
Date: 04 Jul 07 - 09:45 AM

"smokers would accept that non-smokers' rights are just as important as theirs".
I for one certainly do!
Which is why I have said all along "seperate bars at the Landlord's descetion"!
Skipy
(with nowhere to go & nothing to do)

Subject: RE: 42 days to no smoking (UK)
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 04 Jul 07 - 09:02 AM

OK George, I apologise - not for the views which I firmly hold, but for the way in which I expressed them. Sometimes pain, even old pain, gets in the way of reasonableness.

But I still wish that some (not all, there are some considerate smokers around, and certainly you're one of them George) smokers would accept that non-smokers' rights are just as important as theirs, and that it's very unreasonable indeed to expect people like me, who don't smoke, to ingest their waste.

That's all. Over and out,

Subject: RE: 42 days to no smoking (UK)
From: Bill D
Date: 03 Jul 07 - 10:28 PM

Just imagine if tobacco had JUST been discovered, and some company was trying to get it approved by the health authorites.

"Well, you see, you take these leaves and dry them, wrap them in paper or stuff them in a pipe...then set fire to them and inhale the smoke.. Chemicals in them? Oh...who knows?"

Subject: RE: 42 days to no smoking (UK)
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 03 Jul 07 - 09:15 PM

Dropped in for a drink this afternoon to the pub I frequent; all the regulars seemed to be there, and just as many irregulars. Outside a small bunch sitting on the steps smoking and chatting. All of us getting a bit of fresh air, whether we were inside or outside.

Any smoker who stops going to pubs because of this must be a bit of a nut really.Sorry skipy, but honestly I just can't see where the problem is.

It's just a shame it took a law to get people to behave in a way that a little common courtesy should have been sufficient to achieve.

Subject: RE: 42 days to no smoking (UK)
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 03 Jul 07 - 07:38 PM

Get real: get a life: give it up as you did before, and get back to being a responsible and helpful person instead of throwing all the teddies about, in your smoke-deluded sense of liberty-deprivation.

Subject: RE: 42 days to no smoking (UK)
From: skipy
Date: 03 Jul 07 - 02:11 PM

O/K "active" means I read their bloody website, about once a fortnight, if I remember to do so! Thats ALL!
Skipy

Subject: RE: 42 days to no smoking (UK)
From: GUEST,GEUST
Date: 03 Jul 07 - 01:54 PM

..and doesn't http://www.freedom2choose.co.uk/

reek of foul smoke billowing out the arse end of the BNP !!!???

Subject: RE: 42 days to no smoking (UK)
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 03 Jul 07 - 01:17 PM

1)
I have become active with a "smaller" party ????

BNP ?????

CORRECT
Skipy

2)
…………The only way that I can strike back at this ban is to withdraw my services to the community & I am doing it!



In view of the former, the latter could be a blessing in disguise.


DC

Subject: RE: 42 days to no smoking (UK)
From: GUEST,Skipy
Date: 03 Jul 07 - 03:01 AM

it's alright Villan, I signed extra ones last Monday!
Skipy.

Subject: RE: 42 days to no smoking (UK)
From: Rasener
Date: 03 Jul 07 - 12:39 AM

Shame on you Skipy. Thats not the way to do things.

Subject: RE: 42 days to no smoking (UK)
From: GUEST,Skipy
Date: 02 Jul 07 - 06:40 PM

Well, I managed it tonight! I DID NOT go to the pub, 1st time on a Monday for 11 years, so I DID NOT sign the staff cheques for a venue I have looked after for all that time. The staff will not be paid! Perhaps they will have eat their children! The only way that I can strike back at this ban is to withdraw my services to the community & I am doing it!
Skipy

Subject: RE: 42 days to no smoking (UK)
From: George Papavgeris
Date: 02 Jul 07 - 11:47 AM

So judgemental and intolerant of others vices, even when they do not affect you (GUEST had already said he smokes at home, you admit you have no problem with that, but still call him an idiot). You must be very pure and vice-free yourself to feel so righteous and so ready to cast the first stone. Never smoked, did drugs, got drunk, or been overweight; always washing your hands to avoid spreading infections; never been to work while trying to shake off a flu', never picked your nose (did you know that this is now considered a major source of MRSA infections?)...

And still, even with such a halo of purity, your willingness to judge would be suspect, calling people stupid for the harm they inflict on themselves (no longer on you, after the ban). I wonder, do you do the same for those unfortunates suffering from cirrhosis of the liver?

It's a funny way to live a life, I think.

Subject: RE: 42 days to no smoking (UK)
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 02 Jul 07 - 11:15 AM

Not angry, not a clown. Just fed up with smokers trying to justify what they do and refusing to accept that it's a foul, anti-social habit which inflicts suffering on others. They don't want to ingest my waste-products, why should I be forced to ingest theirs?

There's a view which I subscribe to which is that, if smokers hadn't been so selfish in the past (and there are those who aren't selfish) a ban wouldn't have been put in place.

I have no objection to people smoking in their own homes because it doesn't affect me.

And yes, I do think smokers are idiots. The medical evidence proves it. Maybe if some of them had done as I did, and sat holding the burning-hot hand of their dying smoker-mother as she drowned in the pink foam she blew out of her mouth and nostrils with every agonising breath, they might agree with me and give 'em up. It's a vile death. Why make the end more difficult (and early) than it need be?

None are so blind etc., etc.

Outta here.

Subject: RE: 42 days to no smoking (UK)
From: George Papavgeris
Date: 02 Jul 07 - 09:10 AM

Just refer him to his own post of 01 Jul 07 - 04:37 AM , GUEST, Smoker.

Subject: RE: 42 days to no smoking (UK)
From: GUEST,Smoker
Date: 02 Jul 07 - 09:06 AM

Provides the point most members make here, it really should be Backwardman not Backwoodsman.

A bitter old clown

Subject: RE: 42 days to no smoking (UK)
From: George Papavgeris
Date: 02 Jul 07 - 09:02 AM

Bakwoodsman,

if GUEST, Smoker is already doing what you think he should - i.e. smoke in his own home - why do you call him stupid? Lighten up now, no need for such spiteful and aggressive behaviour.

Subject: RE: 42 days to no smoking (UK)
From: GUEST,sparticus
Date: 02 Jul 07 - 08:33 AM

Backwoodsman

Why so angry???

Steady the buffs!

Subject: RE: 42 days to no smoking (UK)
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 02 Jul 07 - 07:58 AM

"She cooks on a Saturday evening, we enjoy a drink in our own home, we have had friends around and big brother does not tell us what to do !"

Precisely as it should be. Smoke your stupid selves to oblivion in your own homes - no problem at all. Just don't do it where I'm forced to inhale your filth.

These selfish idiots just don't get it do they? As I said elsewhere, when smokers drink my piss I'll fight for their right to smoke in the pub.

Subject: RE: 42 days to no smoking (UK)
From: GUEST,Smoker
Date: 02 Jul 07 - 05:46 AM

Yes under the rule book that clearly wish to write. No thanks.

Subject: RE: 42 days to no smoking (UK)
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 02 Jul 07 - 05:34 AM

The ban in Ireland was introduced in March 2004 - Over 3 years ago. If the 1200 pubs and bars quoted is since the ban that is, on average, just over 30 a month.

I'm afraid I don't know the figures for Ireland but what I do know is that, on average, in England the figure was closer to 50 a month. BEFORE the 'ban'. Now, it doesn't take a great mind to figure out that pubs are closing anyway and I am not saying that none will close due to the restrictions. Implying that these 1200 have closed purely due to the restrictions, however, is an out and out lie.

It is also no surprise that a web site that is so blatantly against the restrictions would try to con people in such a way. How about some completely independant links giving us the real picture? Maybe this one that I quoted earlier. Shows a rather different picture doesn't it. Tell you what - An excecise in seeing who can find most articles for and against will be pretty pointless so if people stop quoting the 'facts' as shown by one side only we can concentrate on the real issues.

Like how do we make sure pubs and folk clubs can stay open without subjecting the majority of people to minorities toxic waste? Sorry guys put the restrictions are now in place. Until someone else says otherwise you are going to have to stop whinging and learn to live with it.

Cheers

Dave

Subject: RE: 42 days to no smoking (UK)
From: GUEST,The Barden of England at work
Date: 02 Jul 07 - 02:25 AM

I checked it out as you said Skipy, and still no definitive source. Just saying 'the latest estimate'. From where? How many pubs were closing before the ban? What about the property boom in Eire which would I guess see pubs being bought by property developers. I also notice the website is 'Freedom2choose' so no bias there then? If the pub owners (not most landlords I will agree) had only tried to cater to all their clients by installing smoking rooms for those who wanted to smoke, and non smoking rooms for those who didn't, we wouldn't be here now. They never catered to my 'freedom2choose' did they.

Sorry Kampervan - I didn't put it too well. I believe that give it 3 months and we may well see the non - smokers going out more. To just go on 1 day, and the first day at that, is not proving a thing.
John Barden

Subject: RE: 42 days to no smoking (UK)
From: Kampervan
Date: 01 Jul 07 - 08:38 PM

Sorry B of E, am I missing something?

This is not about smokers staying away cos of the ban. But it is about all the non-smokers, who previously couldn't go to a pub cos of the smoke, still not going to the pub.

They nver really wanted to go, they didn't want people to smoke.

Subject: RE: 42 days to no smoking (UK)
From: GUEST,Smoker
Date: 01 Jul 07 - 08:06 PM

As a smoker this ban would never make me stop. My partner never smoked and since the ban here in Scotland we no longer go to our local.

She cooks on a Saturday evening, we enjoy a drink in our own home, we have had friends around and big brother does not tell us what to do !

The guy who runs our local told me trade since April has fallen by 35%
he said the off licence trade has also suffered, most people get their wine or beer in the supermarket while shopping. He is also president of the local vintners association and said the panic running through the trade at the moment is awesome. The government isn't looking at their bank statements and offering support like they do with farmers in times of crisis.

The only ones quoting figures of success are the anti smoking brigade.

Subject: RE: 42 days to no smoking (UK)
From: GUEST,JTT
Date: 01 Jul 07 - 06:56 PM

Maybe it'll be a more interesting place to live when people aren't giving their money to evil greedy cancer-spewing corporations!

Subject: RE: 42 days to no smoking (UK)
From: GUEST,Skipy
Date: 01 Jul 07 - 06:45 PM

Check out:-
www.freedom2choose.co.uk/

http://www.freedom2choose.co.uk/

Subject: RE: 42 days to no smoking (UK)
From: The Barden of England
Date: 01 Jul 07 - 06:16 PM

1200 now closed in Ireland

Since when exactly? And how many pubs were there in Ireland before the ban? Perhaps 1200 less? Come on now, I presume we're grown up and can quote the sources?
John Barden

Subject: RE: 42 days to no smoking (UK)
From: GUEST
Date: 01 Jul 07 - 06:09 PM

See you in 3 months. From here in my life is FUBAR. 1200 now closed in Ireland
Skipy

Subject: RE: 42 days to no smoking (UK)
From: The Barden of England
Date: 01 Jul 07 - 05:49 PM

Yes sure - the pubs are empty today. What's so unusual about that. all the smokers are trying to prove a point. Let's see how it is in 3 months time when the non-smokers return to the pubs they eschewed, and the smokers realise they go to the pub for more than a cigarette. They're meeting places, not smoking dens. If I go into a pub with my own beer, the landlord gets upset, so why should a smoker go in with his own fags when there are fags to be sold in the pub? Seems like discrimination to me.
JohnBarden

Subject: RE: 42 days to no smoking (UK)
From: GUEST,Skipy
Date: 01 Jul 07 - 04:09 PM

My local, run by a couple I really like, held a "no smoking! party today, because they had to, they are part of a chain. I had occasion to drive past there twice, enroute to shopping & checking out the local skips. The pub was virtually empty & the car park area set aside for the "fun day" was barren, they would not have covered the cost of hiring the equipment! It's started, watch this space!
Skipy

Subject: RE: 42 days to no smoking (UK)
From: GUEST,Arnold
Date: 01 Jul 07 - 03:48 PM

I also lodged my vote Skipy, I am against the ban. A ban on pubs and discos staying open until 4.am or drug addicts receiving cuddles from society instead of harsh prison sentences YES.

I went down to my local earlier and it was empty, Reg who runs it was pulling his hair out !

My wife spoke to her brother in law who runs a successful pub in Somerset, he said it was busy at lunch time, but few drinkers there, families out for a sandwich and a soft drink, he said he was 26% down on the average takings by 4.00pm.

I feel sorry for him as an individual, but on the whole I am very pleased at the response of smokers to vote with their feet.

Long may it reign.

Subject: RE: 42 days to no smoking (UK)
From: GUEST,Skipy
Date: 01 Jul 07 - 02:26 PM

There is a poll running on BBC Front page as we speak / type, when I placed my vote approx. 1 hour ago I was surprised to find out the pro ban % was only 53!
Skipy

Subject: RE: 42 days to no smoking (UK)
From: Kampervan
Date: 01 Jul 07 - 01:44 PM

Yeah well have it your own way. we're never going to agree on this.

I just think that it's all part of a general trend towards making taking the risk out of life, which I see as a bad thing.

Yes, I know why should someone else put your life at risk. But I'm just not sure where all this is going to lead us in the future.

We've already got a movement to restrict medical treatment for overweight people.

They're starting to talk about cutting down on drinking at home.

God it's going to be a bloody boring place to live.

I'm not a supporter of the conspiracy theory, but there are a number of people who feel the need to exercise control over peoples lives and they do this by trying to persuade us to give up control of our lives to them because it's in OUR best interests.

And I find it a bit scary.

Subject: RE: 42 days to no smoking (UK)
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 01 Jul 07 - 12:22 PM

Spot on McG.

Subject: RE: 42 days to no smoking (UK)
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 01 Jul 07 - 12:00 PM

If the pubs/breweries had taken the initiative, and if the smokers had been demanding facilities to allow them to smoke without getting up other people's noses, the legislation might have been different. But they didn't and they weren't. They were perfectly willing to continue with the existing arrangements.

When it came to the point the only choices on offer were to do nothing and so continue to discriminate against the large majority of people who don't like smoke with their drinks, a daft "compromise" ban that would have meant that all pubs that didn't serve food would have continued to be no-go areas for people who couldn't take smoky environments - or a total ban.

Not surprisingly the total ban won out.

Subject: RE: 42 days to no smoking (UK)
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 01 Jul 07 - 11:57 AM

Not quite as simple, Kampervan, although I do agree with the principle of choice. How do you think both the big breweries and small landlords would have reacted if the government had introduced legislation saying that all pubs etc. HAD to spend thousands of pounds to re-install the seperate rooms and then provide adequate ventilation? At least this way the most it costs them is a few hundred quid for each pub to provide a smoking shelter, if at all.

Although I have a deep loathing of politics and politicians in general, as can be seen on many other threads, I realy feel for them on this one - They are damned whatever move they make. I think that introducing legislation which suits 70% of the population is probably the lesser of all evils.

Cheers

Dave

Subject: RE: 42 days to no smoking (UK)
From: Kampervan
Date: 01 Jul 07 - 11:37 AM

George and dave.

Yeah, I agree with the points that you make generally.

And o.k. the pubs/breweries could have taken the iniative but they didn't
But then why couldn't the legislation have been worded to include the provision of a properly-ventilated place where smoking would be allowed.

Always providing that the room complied with the rules on air movement and particle filtration, and with drinks brought in from a 'clean room' so that staff didn't have to work in the smoking area?

It all smacks of control freakery.