BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 28 Sep 07 - 07:58 AM

I assume someone's doing research on all this. Everything gets researched. I suspect that pubs and towns where the pub trade is suffering particularly because of the new situation in the way Faith described are a minority, and that it'll be pretty transient.

Smoking is a pretty strong habit form the minority whom smoke - but so is going to pubs.

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 28 Sep 07 - 07:46 AM

Jesus-H-Christ, been in hospital for a week or two and come out to find this old bolleaux still being trotted out by the addicts.

It's happened. Get over it. Move on.

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 28 Sep 07 - 07:09 AM

Being worried for the industry you work in does not make you a bad person. Your habit however, at best, did stop people going into certain pubs and, at worst, killed people. Trying to justify that as concern for the 'industry' does make you seem a hypocite. How can you care for one set of people yet happily ignore the wishes of the majority?

Besides that I still say that pubs that relied on smokers for their trade were too short sighted to survive anyway.

Dave.

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: Faith87
Date: 28 Sep 07 - 06:52 AM

Oh and I ment to add.. Whetherspoons? Non smoking? Ewer? Then the ones near me were all breaking their big bad rules lol. You could smoke in all three of the ones I frequent untill the national smoking ban :S

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 28 Sep 07 - 06:43 AM

No it doesn't Faith, but I do think that, given time, it will level off and start building up again. People will miss the pub, after all if getting away from the wife is the apparent main aim of going to the pub, drinking at home doesn't achieve that objective ;-)
G

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: Faith87
Date: 28 Sep 07 - 06:39 AM

I can be alot more surly and rude than I was. Trust me. and I'm sure I did state that it wasnt just my pub, it was the entire town. just watching people walk past and there is a significantly lower people out in the town than there was before.

But I do have to agree with the comment about the price of beer.
I sell a pint of Fosters for £2:50, with a half being exactly half of that, £1:25.
But, walk down the street and theres a pub that sells the same beer, in the same quantaties for £2:70. Also alot of places, I have found, will sell halves for more than half the price of the pint, so the more halves a customer has, the more they are paying than if they were drinking pints.
Also I sell a bottle of VK for £1:90. Go to the same pub as above and they will cost you £2:20.
The price of alcohol in general is getting disgusting. I do agree that this SHOULD be lowered. but because the government are trying to get people to stop smoking, therefore loosing out on tax's from people buying cigarettes, they do seem to be punishing the drinkers in general with horedous beer prices. This seems terrably unfair.

Also, I have thought of another pro to this smoking ban, (we thought of this while out side having a cigarette a couple of weeks back haha) You do get to speak to people that you never would usually think of speaking to. But like I said I can see pros and cons of its.

And as someone mentioned earlier about bar staff prefering it, while I'm working yes it IS slighty better. The tables arent a mess and you havent got ash all over where you keep the ashtray bin. I'm just worried for the industry that I work in, thats all.
Does that make me such a "bad" person?

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: Girl Friday
Date: 22 Sep 07 - 01:17 PM

I go to a pub in Essex that has a Folk Club most Sundays. Though it aspires to be a music pub, its main form of entertainment is big screen(several)football. The only refuge from the music and the football WAS!!!! the garden. Now they are broadcating the football in the garden FOR THE BENEFIT OF THE SMOKERS!!!

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: jacqui.c
Date: 22 Sep 07 - 09:33 AM

Village pubs have been closing for years, with or without a smoking ban. My son ran one in Hertfordshire and was fighting not only the brewery who wanted to sell the land, but the competition from the local cricket club and the nearest town. Smoking didn't come into the equation.

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: GUEST,punkfolkrocker
Date: 21 Sep 07 - 09:49 PM

the new law did not go far enough..

ther are not enough local council 'anti smoker police' to patrol every pub..

bar staff in busy weekend pubs are too overworked to look out
for every dark corner in big popular pubs..


so..


its only reasonable that if we see some cheeky little drunk smoker c@ny
deliberately flauting the law
hinding his fag in his shirt
taking sly puffs
smirking for the applause from mates for his naughty brave public protest..

well.. its only reasonable we nice people
can tip his pint over his head
to extinguish his poisonous fun
and then get away with impunity free from prosecution
after the ensuing punch up...


sems fair to me..

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 21 Sep 07 - 04:48 PM

...who will use a pub regularly are the people who are creatures of habit, to that end, most of them are smokers

How many times does it nweed to be pointed out - they aren't!!

No doubt there are some pubs where smokers were in the majority,but in the vast majority of pubs smokers were a minority, very often a tiny minority. And that included regulars.

If people are staying away from pubs, the two main reasons for that would be that most pubs have such a high mark up on beer compared to supermarkets, and that there is so much more awareness of the dangers of driving after having had a few.

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: Rasener
Date: 21 Sep 07 - 01:58 PM

Bloody hell just did 200. never did that before.

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: Rasener
Date: 21 Sep 07 - 01:57 PM

I wish I was going to see the Villa as well on Sunday. Just imagine that. No git smoking those horrible cigars 6 inches from your nose, trying to show off about how wealthy they are.

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: Rasener
Date: 21 Sep 07 - 01:54 PM

Doug
You forget the fact that cancer from smoking doesn't disapear once you have stopped. It can be many years afterwards that a smoker may get cancer caused by their smoking. That also goes for passive smokers.

However what has to be looked at is the long term effect. I still reckon that many people will get cancer caused by smoking mnay years after this law was brought in.

The main thing is that it has happened and that can only be good for our children.

Having said that, one has to wonder what issues will occur when we see the realities of mobile phones/wifi etc.

Having said all that, I think its great that people can't smoke in pubs.

We are in Brum tomorrow and I am looking forward to going for a meal in a pub with my family, without the slightest hint of smoke. Whoopee.

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: Blindlemonsteve
Date: 21 Sep 07 - 01:30 PM

I havent read all this thread, so i apologise if i am going over old ground, but the U.K non smoking in pubs is different from the rest of the world due to the high tax that the Brits pay on alcohol, its fair to say that if alcohol wasnt taxed so much the no smoking ban might pull in the non smoking majority, the truth is that a pint is so damned expensive in Britain, that the only people who will use a pub regularly are the people who are creatures of habit, to that end, most of them are smokers. i think its gonna be a real problem for the pubs, perhaps the government could concede the tax on beer to give the publican a chance.... oh look a flying pig.

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 21 Sep 07 - 01:29 PM

I'm surprised that no-one has mentioned the recently published Scottish health figures in this debate (unless, of course, I have missed it)

News report

I know there are lies, damned lies and statistics but, even allowing for the most over-generous interpretation, the figures surely speak for themselves. Over the last few years, hospital admissions for heart attack victims have been falling at around 3% a year. In a year where the only significant social change has been the smoking restrictions, there has been a 17% overall reduction heart attack hospital admissions. For non-smokers the figure goes up to 20%.

I would expect an improvement for smokers who either give up or reduce the amount they smoke because of the restrictions. However, if second-hand smoke had no effect then I would expect the rate among non-smokers to remain much the same. The fact that there is such a significant reduction amongst this group, to my mind, proves the case for the restrictions.

Keeping pubs open shouldn't depend on killing people.

DC

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: Greg B
Date: 21 Sep 07 - 12:20 PM

"Perhaps the anti smoking smug barstards will be happy when they have no
village pub to go to."

What you don't get is that they didn't have one before. As there
are fewer and fewer public places where one is exposed to 2nd hand
smoke, one's tolerance goes down and it becomes more and more
difficult to just 'suck it up.' Not that it's any worse for you
than it was, but it sure causes more discomfort than it did.

Now that doesn't mean 'bring back smoke-filled rooms' so we can
all get our tolerance back, either!

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: Rasener
Date: 21 Sep 07 - 09:52 AM

LOL

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: GUEST,jealous
Date: 21 Sep 07 - 09:32 AM

"Has he not got the charisma and good looks to avoid having to hide behind a cigarette to pull a girl?"

No, but he's still my mate.

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 21 Sep 07 - 09:04 AM

Tobacco?

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: Rasener
Date: 21 Sep 07 - 09:02 AM

Has he not got the charisma and good looks to avoid having to hide behind a cigarette to pull a girl?

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: GUEST,jealous
Date: 21 Sep 07 - 07:50 AM

My mate has actually STARTED smoking, as he finds it's a great new way to meet gals

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: Ernest
Date: 21 Sep 07 - 07:14 AM

Don`t you think you are taking this issue too serious, Skipy?

Being forced to smoke outside is not that low down compared to the things people have to endure in places where there is a war, a flood, fires etc.

If you are in serious trouble that is not mentioned here, I apologize.

Have a nice weekend!

Best wishes
Ernest

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: skipy
Date: 21 Sep 07 - 04:01 AM

Are you sure they see you as a mate and not just as the-bloke-that-used-to-stand-next-to-me-in-the-pub?

Maybe I am Ernest!
Why not kick a bloke when he is down!
Skipy

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: Ernest
Date: 21 Sep 07 - 02:30 AM

Skipy: Why would anyone care to look at a place where people rather stay at home, avoiding contact to their mates just because they are asked to have their fags outside.

Sounds like a boring bunch of people. Are you sure they see you as a mate and not just as the-bloke-that-used-to-stand-next-to-me-in-the-pub?

Best
Ernest

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: GUEST,Barry
Date: 20 Sep 07 - 08:20 PM

Our ban is just now going into effect. I don't drink alchol but I go to the Press Room in New Hampshire (US) for the sessions & I do spend money eating. I'm delighted as a singer that there's a ban as I know most other singers are to. Many of the patrons if they smoke are at the other end away from the music but there are those that smoke but have always gone outside, thanks to them all but then there are those that will sit as close to the singers as possible & smoke not giving a shit about them, well now they can take it out doors & if they don't like it they can go elsewhere there's always another who'll be wanting their table.

Barry

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: skipy
Date: 20 Sep 07 - 05:25 PM

Come & look at the pubs in my village, they are nearly empty & struggling. I have not seen any of my mates for nearly 3 months, they may be dead who knows. Running a festival I only set set foot in one of my venues for about 10 mins in the whole weekend, so that was worth all the work! Wake up & smell the coffee!
Skipy

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 20 Sep 07 - 02:35 PM

I'll be more than happy when there are no such crapy pubs left at all, Richard, let alone village ones. Any pub that relies on drug adicts to keep it going doesn't deserve to stay open.

None closed near me yet and trade is up apparantly. I have also noticed, like Ian C, that the proportion of women has increased and that the age of the pub goer seems to have shifted up a few years. A little look at the last CAMRA survey makes sense of that - The majority of people smoking in pubs were the younger lager/alcopop crowd. Good riddance:-)

By the way - are you related to T W Atkins?

Cheers

Dave

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: Rasener
Date: 20 Sep 07 - 12:57 PM

Thats very good news IanC

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: IanC
Date: 20 Sep 07 - 07:29 AM

Having had the smoking ban for the best part of 3 months now, things are looking really good in Ashwell.

The 3 pubs in Ashwell were never very heavily populated with smokers anyway, but the people smoking meant that you always went home literally stinking after a night out.

Pretty much the same proportion smoke still, but they go outside - usually for a minute or two - to have a smoke ... maybe twice or three times in an evening (more for some). After the first few days, nobody has ever complained. They generally leave their beer on the table or the bar while they're out (a bit like going to the toilet).

Everybody that I've spoken to, including the smokers (many of them had been predicting dire results and been very unhappy about the approaching ban), are much happier with the atmosphere and general state of the bars. Also, the people who have to clean say they are pleased not to have anything like the mess to clear up.

There are probably 20% to 50% more people drinking in the pubs now than when the ban was introduced and more women as a proportion than there used to be.

Just a little survey.

:-)

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: manitas_at_work
Date: 20 Sep 07 - 06:28 AM

"Perhaps the anti smoking smug barstards "

That's definitely a good argument for the ban - it'll keep out the ill-educated, foul-mouthed oiks who think debates can be won by insults.

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 20 Sep 07 - 06:18 AM

"analising your village pub" I don't think that might be advisable...

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: Rasener
Date: 20 Sep 07 - 02:23 AM

Richard is your pub a drinking/smoking house or a restaurant as well?
Also how many people in the village?
What is the % of the people who go to the pub compared with how many in the village?

I still reckon a lot of the village pubs have already lost trade becuase of the strict drink/driving laws.

Its worth analising your village pub to see if the problem is related to smoking ban or soemthing else.

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: Richard Atkins
Date: 19 Sep 07 - 08:59 PM

Perhaps the anti smoking smug barstards will be happy when they have no village pub to go to. At Bromyard a landlord told me his trade was down 65 percent as customers "were buying from the supermarket and rotating their houses as smoking drinking venues!"
Winter nearly here and worse to come then! ?

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 18 Sep 07 - 06:26 PM

It was, skip. I apologise.

I don't see anyone denying it though;-)

D.

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 18 Sep 07 - 05:49 PM

I can't see the point of being unpleasant to or about people who choose to smoke, so long as it doesn't get forced on other people.

"...hideous smokers" That kind of attitude is the only kind of thing that could tempt me to smoke cigarettes - and if I did smoke it'd get in the way of me giving it up.

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 18 Sep 07 - 04:52 PM

Frankly it's the one good thing this government has done, now we can laugh at the hideous smokers huddling outside as it gets colder. I laugh.

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: Greg B
Date: 18 Sep 07 - 03:24 PM

...who keeps blowing smoke in their faces.

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: skipy
Date: 18 Sep 07 - 03:10 PM

DP, that was unkind!
Skipy

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 18 Sep 07 - 03:07 PM

I suspect the reason that no-one goes into Faith's pub is because of a particularly surly and rude barmaid with no firm grasp on either reality or the English language.

Dave

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 18 Sep 07 - 01:37 PM

"These discussions always dissolve into minutia and off premise arguments. I listen to smokers trying to justify their position and act as if they have a right to inflict their poison on the rest of us. You don't have the right to spread poison in the atmosphere that I MUST breathe. Said another way, it is not up to me to accomodate you in your quest to poison yourself by putting myself at risk. There is no inherent right on your part to pollute the air around me and endanger my life. Should you have the right to put this stuff in your own body? IMO, yes you should. But it is incumbent on you to find a way to do it without inflicting it on others in public places and public businesses. Public places, and public businesses, are not the place as there are those that don't want this around them for justifiable, health related reasons.

In other words, it's your problem, not ours"


I have never seen the right of this better expressed. Well said Mick.

Don T. (who was a heavy smoker for fifty three of his sixty six years, and now feels the benefits of quitting, and not being forcee to continue second hand.)

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 18 Sep 07 - 01:26 PM

The majority of people in pretty well all the pubs I know are non-smokers, and were even before the restriction came in. The pubs are just as full, with a couple of people outside having a fag, and maybe a few people sitting having a drink at the outside tables, most of them not smoking.

All the bar staff I've talked to seem to reckon its much better for them too.

No doubt there are some pubs like the one Faith works in. I can see them closing...

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: Big Mick
Date: 18 Sep 07 - 01:20 PM

These discussions always dissolve into minutia and off premise arguments. I listen to smokers trying to justify their position and act as if they have a right to inflict their poison on the rest of us. You don't have the right to spread poison in the atmosphere that I MUST breathe. Said another way, it is not up to me to accomodate you in your quest to poison yourself by putting myself at risk. There is no inherent right on your part to pollute the air around me and endanger my life. Should you have the right to put this stuff in your own body? IMO, yes you should. But it is incumbent on you to find a way to do it without inflicting it on others in public places and public businesses. Public places, and public businesses, are not the place as there are those that don't want this around them for justifiable, health related reasons.

In other words, it's your problem, not ours.

Mick

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: Rasener
Date: 18 Sep 07 - 01:10 PM

Faith. Instead of bleating about the heartaches why don't you look at this example, which I did mention earlier on in this thread, but worth repeating.
Why don't you ring them and ask them for some sound advice.

This is an example of enterprise and how to make a success of things.

A shining example of how to get off your arse and cater for the public

This pub is not in your posh high cost property area of Lincoln. In fact it is in a cheap property old terraced area of Lincoln.
I went there recently after the smoking ban. It is a shining example of how to do it.

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 18 Sep 07 - 11:18 AM

Oh and BTW Faith, one of the reasons more non-smokers aren't crawling out of the nicotine stained woodwork, is because of the horrific price of beer.
£3 a pint I paid recently, bloody daylight robbery, and don't blame it all on the Taxes. I was in a pub in August down in the south west of England where they were charging £1.50 a pint for real ale. Now that's the way to get the punters in!
Maybe people are seeing through the pub chains mate.
Giok

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: manitas_at_work
Date: 18 Sep 07 - 11:11 AM

" im sorry for all you stuck up non smokers out there, but you kno, you werent FORCED to go to a pub where there was smoking"

But neither was there provision made for me to have a drink in clean air!. Nobody's forcing YOU to go into a pub you can't smoke in. The boot's on the other foot, we had to put up with your smoking in order to have a sociable drink and now you have to forgo a smoke for a short while while you have a sociable drink. Is it really that hard to do?

As for rethinking your career choice, have you spared a thought for the non-smoking bar-staff who WERE forced to endure smoke or go without a job? Perhaps you could volunteer to replace a beagle in smoking experiments?

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 18 Sep 07 - 10:48 AM

You are also not allowed to drive a car when you have drunk too much, is this an infringement of your liberties too.
Good pubs will survive, and the crap pubs will go, now they have to be warm and welcoming and supply a decent service, about time too.
Too many pubs are dirty and smelly and offer nothing but dirty seats and floors, along with a take it or leave it attitude that beggars belief.
There are too many pubs anyway, a left over from the days when running a pub was a profitable pastime.
Giok

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: Faith87
Date: 18 Sep 07 - 10:43 AM

Do any of you actually work in the pub trade?
Now i do, and im a smoker, and i can see both pros and cons to this stupid ban.
the majority of our customers are smokers, im sorry for all you stuck up non smokers out there, but you kno, you werent FORCED to go to a pub where there was smoking. i do agree that there should be smoking rooms and non smoking rooms but unfortunatly not all pubs can accommodate this, like pubs that have no where to put a smoking shelter. we are being dictated to on how we can or cannot live our lives, and a lot of the non smokers that come in to the pub where i work and spend most of my leisure time, all say that they would rather there be no ban than have a ban, pubs would be more full and lively as this ban is hitting them quite hard. People who dont work in the industry, dont get the pub publications (not your sun or mirror but publications about the business for the business) cannot say that they think this is happening or that is happening as they do not kno the full extend of what is happening behind closed doors. they say smokers are in the minority. okay so why are the pubs so empty. why are more non smokers coming out of the wood work if that is the case. the traditional pub is one where you can go, have a beer, have a smoke and chat with people. it is dying. pubs are failing, more and more pubs are going up for sale each week. this is getting idiotic now. its about time the english public stood up and did something for themselves and not bow down to the dictatorship that we are living under. its pathetic. i kno i may only be a youngster that "doesnt have an opion" in some peoples minds but i kno a bit about my industry and i have seen the rapid decline in the place i work where i have worked for the last 2 years. its disheartening and as a future landlady, it makes me want to rethink my career chioce which i shouldnt have to do.

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 09 Aug 07 - 05:02 PM

I think there's danger of going over the top about all this. No smoking in confined spaces where the smoke can't rapidly blow away seems quite good enough for me.

And if people can get some kind of exemption for places which are specifically set up as places for smoking, like Shisha bars, that'd be fine too, so far I'm concerned. (And smoke from hookahs always smells so ucgh better too, even when it's from tobacco.) Though the issue of such places being workplaces would come in here, and no one should be expected to work in a smoky environment.   Some kind of serve-yourself, tidy up after yourself, system could be developed to sort that.

But the truth is, so many places are so much more pleasant now than they were a few weeks ago - pubs, cafes... And the streets are better too, with all those cheerful tables, and people sitting outside with their drinks and their smokes.

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 09 Aug 07 - 04:45 PM

I must say that farts are pretty disgusting - But they don't seem to do anyone any harm. Apart from the ones with lumps in...;-) Worse that that I reckon is the smell of old mops and disinfectant that some pubs now seem to have acquired! The smoking ban realy is showing up some pubs as not nice places in general:-( I suppose if these are the ones that will close we are on a winner all round!

Cheers

Dave

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: Emma B
Date: 09 Aug 07 - 04:09 PM

Oh noooo! My partner, an ex smoker of some years, got back from the "local" last night and advised me to sit down and have a cigarette to steady my nerves.
Apparently some breweries have discovered that cigarette smoke has been disguising the other odours of the pub - the main offender being flatulence (it appears some people are not prepared to go outside to exercise their "disgusting habit"!) and are now experimenting with chemical "perfumes" and so-called air "fresheners" to pollute the atmosphere instead!