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!

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: Stringsinger
Date: 09 Aug 07 - 11:46 AM

Mick, thank you for your clarification. I agree that Irish music which is wonderful doesn't require alcohol and tobacco to make it beautiful.

Most of the defenders of tobacco in public places where children can breathe it and consenting adults are being harmed by it are addicts.   The tobacco lobby has kept it from being cited by the FDA as an addictive substance because they make a lot of money on tobacco addicts.

I'm glad that other countries are waking up to the dangers of this chemical substance. I suppose that if people want to destroy their health, I can't stop them but I protest their doing harm to others by their disgusting habit.

Frank Hamilton

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: Ernest
Date: 09 Aug 07 - 07:20 AM

Just one topic and then the giving the message: "Do nothing - keep everything the way it was before" doesn`t sound very active to me.
Especially as a poltitical party should provide solutions/concepts for othe problems of society as well instead of just keepimg the seats in parliament warm.
How about a slogan mentioning anoter topic: "Smokers out of Iraq!" ;0)
Regards
Ernest

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 09 Aug 07 - 07:10 AM

Would you really stand for a party that wanted to just leave it to the pub landlords whether it was a smoking venue or not, skipy? Or do you think you can get them to do something more for non-smokers once you are in?

Not as it matters really. I suppose any fringe party will fare about as well as the other minority interests!

Cheers

Dave

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: skipy
Date: 09 Aug 07 - 05:40 AM

I have applied to stand for Wantage & Grove!
Skipy

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 09 Aug 07 - 05:08 AM

I got a reply - I will not cut and paste all of it unless someone is really interested. In a nutshell the answer to which pubs will be smoking and which will not is 'Market Forces'. The founder suggests that if non-smokers boycott pubs unless they go non-smoking there will be enough non-smoking venues. I don't feel that is much of a choice for me - go in smoky pubs or don't go in pubs at all - so I have written back suggesting they may be better trying to get licensed smoking venues etc. Maybe you can suggest your plan to them, skipy?

Cheers

Dave

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: skipy
Date: 08 Aug 07 - 03:03 PM

I have checked all STATED links, there is one to Dave Hitt, but none to othere parties.
Skipy

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: skipy
Date: 08 Aug 07 - 02:11 PM

No, the fear is that it may be BNP.
Skipy

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: manitas_at_work
Date: 08 Aug 07 - 11:55 AM

UKIP?

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: skipy
Date: 08 Aug 07 - 11:42 AM

Thanks Dave.
Fair comment, I need to check that they are not affiliated to you know who!
Skipy

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: goatfell
Date: 08 Aug 07 - 11:25 AM

I don't drink booze, so I don't really care if a pub shuts or not, and I don't smoke either.

to me a pub when there was smoking allowed in it really smelled bad you know stinking, and drunks loved it.

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 08 Aug 07 - 11:19 AM

4!

:D

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 08 Aug 07 - 11:18 AM

Looks good skipy! I have not checked out their pedigree so I do not know if they are affiliated to any other party - Hopefuly not! They deserve some sucess with the reservations I have voiced previously. To that end I have emailed them with the following -

I am not a smoker but I can certainly sympathise with your campaign if not entirely agree.

The reservation I have, and I am sure other people will have spotted it, is that I feel we will end up with more discriminination than we had before! If the owner of the venue has the right to choose whether to be smoking or not then, effectively, you will have two sets of pubs, restaurants, cafes etc. In addition to this, to ensure complete fairness, we need this split to be statisticaly compatible with the number of smokers and non smokers. At the moment, I believe, this is about 35% and 65% respectively. So, we need 35% of venues to allow smoking and 65% to not do so. Is there any fair way of deciding which venues will be which? Would your party be willing to take on that responsibilty? What happens were a village has only one pub? Do we change the split periodicaly as the statistics change? I think the logistics of the scheme would be a nightmare!

I am honestly not trying to put unreal hurdles in your way. If you can address these issues in a sensible way then I am sure that your campaign will go a long way and I, even as a non-smoker, would offer my support. You say yourself that you would not like to subject non-smokers to smoke etc. I am sure that you would not like to return us non-smokers to the situation I was in where, out of 30 local pubs, there was not a single no smoking venue. That is as bad as the discrimination that you are now objecting to.

I look forward to your reply.

Regards

Dave Polshaw

I realy am looking forward to the reply and will post it here when I get one.

Cheers

Dave

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: skipy
Date: 08 Aug 07 - 10:34 AM

Looks like I'm going into politics!
http://www.wecansmokeparty.com/
Skipy

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: Ernest
Date: 08 Aug 07 - 07:22 AM

Next time they do it, go over, thank them for the friendly, but original invitation in smoke-sign and eat and drink all you can manage. That should teach them! ;0)

Regards
Ernest

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 08 Aug 07 - 07:15 AM

All I can say is your neighbours need lessons in proper barbequeing. A well made barbeque should have little or no smoke.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: Rasener
Date: 08 Aug 07 - 06:16 AM

I will have to look into that Dave.

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 08 Aug 07 - 05:11 AM

There used to be legislation about garden fires that I am sure should cover BBQ's at one time. I guess if they are still in existance they are jut not enforced any more. Another example of inconsiderate people possibly bringing about legislation?

D.

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: Rasener
Date: 08 Aug 07 - 04:49 AM

Oh, I forgot to say that they put their BBQ on the left hand side of the garden, as the wind was blowing from right to left, thus making sure they didn't get smoked out.

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: Rasener
Date: 08 Aug 07 - 04:43 AM

>>But how can you make sure that no smoke drifts over from a private garden (no public space as the qwner doesn`t open it for the public) to the street (definitely public space)?
<<

Maybe so, but soemthing worse than that, is the selfish bastards who have charcoal BBQ's in their small gardens.

A couple of evenings ago, our neighbours lit a BBQ and the smoke was flooding our garden and we had to shut all doors and windows and stay inside, in baking hot weather. We were going to have our dinner outside, but had to eat it inside. The smoking ban should extend to charcoal/coal BBQ's as well.

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: Ernest
Date: 08 Aug 07 - 02:22 AM

Big Mick:

are you a lawyer too? Your answer "cut the shit" is typical answer for a lawyer: short, precise and totally useless ;0)

I am not making your plan seem unworkable, it is so: according to your plan smoking is prohibited in public open spaces only. But how can you make sure that no smoke drifts over from a private garden (no public space as the qwner doesn`t open it for the public) to the street (definitely public space)?

For the issue discussed here (smoking in pubs): it is very likely that every (or nearly every) pub would declare itself a smokers place (because they would fear to lose smoking customers, the non smokers having tolerated smoke before). The effect of it is that as a non smoker I am forced to accept the effects on my health or stay away completely. Whereas all the law asks of the smokers is to go outside for the duration of their cigarette. Question of proportionality...

Regards
Ernest

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: GUEST,punkfolkrocker
Date: 08 Aug 07 - 12:35 AM

well now the suns come out..

it was hardly any time at all before i noticed
smokers congregating outside open pub windows,

perching on the exterior window ledges..

chatting to their non-smoking mates
who were sitting at tables on the other side of the open window inside the bar..


whilst all the time puffing away obliviously blowing their noxious shite
inside the pub through those open windows
that were intended to allow in a comfortable cool refreshing breeze.....


selfish smoking twats !!!!

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: Big Mick
Date: 07 Aug 07 - 11:55 PM

Ernest, cut the shit. You know full well what I am speaking of. Public property is any outdoor area that the public uses. Basically tbhat means that if you aren't in your car or your house, you can't smoke, other than in clubs where they have stated that they are a smokers business. The point is that I should not, under any circumstances be forced to breath your poison against my will.

What you are attempting to do, and rather poorly I might add, is make it seem unworkable. The fact is it is a very doable plan because of its simplicity.

But it ain't gonna happen.........

So deal with the laws such as you see them.

Mick

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: Ernest
Date: 06 Aug 07 - 02:04 AM

Sorry Big Mick,
I still don`t get your concept. What about parking lots, entrances on private grounds etc.? Following your concept the owners would be able to allow it there.

How would you make sure the smoke doesn`t drift on public grounds? Make the smokers liable for the wind?

The "public spaces" you are writing about: what are they? Only property of the state? Or does this include property that is opened by the owner for the public? The latter definition would certainly include pubs...

Best
Ernest

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: Big Mick
Date: 05 Aug 07 - 10:45 PM

Frank, I hope you didn't miss the distinction I make as well. I make a pretty good amount of money playing Irish music, and I quite agree that the horse puckey about the drink and smoke is just that. My point is that there is a way that eliminates the arguments about so called "rights".

And Ernest, don't give me that crap about the outdoors. I am not talking about all of the outdoors. I am talking about public spaces. Do what you want on your own property, but you have no right on public property to force me to smell this disgusting crap. My proposal makes smokers move to where NO ONE has to live with their ugly, unhealthy habit.

Mick

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: Rasener
Date: 05 Aug 07 - 04:39 PM

Somebody is making some money out of it

Making money out of smoking ban

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: Stringsinger
Date: 05 Aug 07 - 01:09 PM

I can't believe that some people would attribute Irish talent to smoking and alcohol. Makes no sense. Let the pubs change and maybe Irish music can be expanded to include people who value their health as well.

There is this pervasive myth that unless music contains smoking and drinking it somehow loses it's grittiness or folk-edge. It's part of the folk-pretentiousness that doesn't reflect the values of many traditional singers and pickers.

Glad the ban is started and maybe those who are insensitive to other people's lungs will get the message that it's not about "their rights" but the rights of others to be around them without having their air polluted by bad boys and girls.

I'm sick of going to music parties and events where it's somehow required to have drunks and wheezing tobacco smokers to give a phony "authenticity" to the precedings.

Frank Hamilton

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 05 Aug 07 - 11:14 AM

Wonder what is going to happen when the councils get tetchy about the amount of detritus being generated? Stop inside to smoke - £50 fine. Drop your dog end on the pavement £50 fine. Poor ol' smokers can't win:-(

Cheers

Dave

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 05 Aug 07 - 11:11 AM

Now that the weather here has suddenly turned into summer for a bit, one result of the restrictions is becoming increasingly clear - virtually every eating or drinking establishment now has pavement tables. Including trasnport cafes.

It's a great improvement to the public environment in towns and elsewhere, and I think we should be grateful to the smokers who have brought it about.

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: GUEST,ibo
Date: 05 Aug 07 - 09:03 AM

You are all wasting your time trying to talk sense into smokers,they dont believe the doctors or the more sensible humans on this planet.They always know someone who is 120 year old and smoked from the age of six and never people who have never smoked and suffer the misery of illness caused by passive smoking.The only time they realise is when they are on their deathbed when giving up is too late.To all sensible people it is obviously the best thing that has ever happened,long live us all.

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: Ernest
Date: 05 Aug 07 - 07:08 AM

Skipy, you are disapointing me:

not in one word did you mention that the gasoline needed for cars is procured by George W. Bush inveding Iraq ;0)

Are you going to tell us that streets are paved with the tar from smokers cigarettes?

Regards
Ernest

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 05 Aug 07 - 04:35 AM

Completely different argument, skipy. I agree wholeheartedly that polution of all sorts should be eliminated and, eventualy, it will. Until then we have little alternative to the infernal combustion engine. Besides, this thread is about pubs closing because of the smoking ban. Not about polution in general.

Cheers

Dave

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: Rasener
Date: 05 Aug 07 - 01:30 AM

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

http://www.beertoday.co.uk/pubs300307b.htm

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.

They have even introduced a well stocked book swap scheme. Its great to see people reading books whilst they sup.
In fact I would say that the landlords have thought a lot about how to make a pub workand have thought about how to get joe public in.

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: skipy
Date: 04 Aug 07 - 07:02 PM

Wow, you must be a cyclist & therefore don't produce any diesel or petrol fume & only eat things grown in your garden so they don't get delivered & of course you don't fly anywhere!
By the way, how was your bicycle made without producing fumes?
Skipy

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: Ernest
Date: 04 Aug 07 - 05:07 PM

Big Mick,
I don`t understand why you want to prevent smoking outdoors. Thats the place where it can be avoided easiest and where the smoke disappears very fast. In a room it stays much longer.

And I think you are missing Bills point. This ban has been discussed in the public for some years and it was easily forseeable that the legislator would take steps and introduce regulations if there would be no voluntary agreements (Here in Germany the Publicians Association even took the initiative and made propaganda among its members that restaurants should voluntarily introduce a certain (small) percentage of non-smoking tables for each restaurant. The results of that initiative have been so ridiculously low that they weren`t even published). So there was a choice: either make your own decisions or have the legislature make them for you.

And yes, business is private property. Still it is no legal vacuum. You aren`t allowed to kill, injure, cheat etc. someone just because this happens in your private property.

Besides, if you want to stay in that picture: It is the smokers responsibility to keep their cancerogeous smoke out of my lungs, clothes etc. These are MY private property ;0)

Best
Ernest

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: Big Mick
Date: 04 Aug 07 - 04:19 PM

I'm a little disappointed in Bill's response. I don't know Ernest well enough, but he misses the distinction as well. First off, no public smoking outdoors. No one should be subjected to cig smoke involuntarily. Second off, Bill's argument about how no one chose the years before this went into effect misses the key point. Because the owners weren't forced to choose one or the other. The lazy smokers won't choose at all. Bill's answer smacks of a paternalistic attitude that he knows no one would follow the rules. My way forces a decision. In Bill's example the pubs didn't have to choose. Hence, they didn't. It's one or the other, no middle. And no one would be forced to live with the other unless they chose to. Under no cirmcumstances do I want your filty, stinking smoke. I don't want to walk through it, or be around it. You have no right to contaminate and injure my lungs and cvs. And I don't have an absolute right to go into any business I want. As long as the introduction of smoke to me is involuntary, I object. But if that restaraunt announces it is strictly a smoking place, I won't be in it.

BTW Ernest, public business is still private property. You don't have the same rights there. You don't have the right to go in, if the owner chooses not to let you in. Signage that indicates that owners reserve the right to refuse service abound.

All the best,

Mick

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: skipy
Date: 04 Aug 07 - 01:36 PM

LTS, it may be worth noting here that we had a small chat by the real ale bar at Towersey 2 years back simply because I was outside having a cigarette, havig just left the sing to do so.
Skipy

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 04 Aug 07 - 12:29 PM

Dave - I've not just caught up, my second posting suggests the pub owners do something to entice more customers in, rather than bemoan the loss of the others.

HoP Bar - staffed by "civil servants" - yes, we come in all guises! They sign the Official Secrets act and are subject to all manner of tests and inspections before they're allowed to work there. Even the cleaners are vetted and searched. The HoP bar is accessible only by those who work there, by members of Parliament and their guests. Even emergency services staff have to be escorted on and off the premises, as I discovered when the father of a friend dropped dead of a heart attack there some years ago.

I will bring my little giant to the north again, if I get another invite.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: Ernest
Date: 04 Aug 07 - 10:59 AM

Hi Emma:

sorry to hear that you have health problems when together with people who are over-perfumed. While I have to admit that this can be annoying to other people (including me) as well I think as a cause for health problems this is an exception. Smoking on the other hand is dangerous even for bystanders as a rule.


And I still can`t see why smokers should be entitled to have a drink and a smoke at the same time while non-smokers are denied of their rights to have a drink and not be molested/endangered by smoke at the same time.

Best
Ernest

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 04 Aug 07 - 10:55 AM

Oh - and Liz - I have been saying that all along (it's the pub owners own fault etc.) Glad to see someone has caught up at last:-) Must disagree about the HoP bar though. Other people CAN get in it. Or do the MP's serve behind the bar as well?

I do think that is more of a reflection on the integrity of our wonderful representatives, the same ones who are quite happy to award themselves huge pay increases every year, than it is on anything to do with the ban. A (smoked) red herring put about by people who are failing to convince us with other arguments.

Cheers

Dave

PS - When are you bringing that Giant of yours up to the frozen North again?

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 04 Aug 07 - 10:30 AM

I am afraid that anyone who does not smoke in the presence of non-smoking fellow human beings does have every right to feel 'holier'. They are! I agree that there is no need to be offensive though.

Cheers

Dave.

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: Emma B
Date: 04 Aug 07 - 07:59 AM

No offence taken Dave. However I have a serious asthma like reaction to many of the modern deoderants and "perfumes" that some people like to pollute MY atmosphere with. At the very least they make all food taste disgusting and some public transport journeys impossible - do you really need to wear a ton of perfume to go shopping folks?

However I refrain from telling these people just how unpleasant they stink and that, in comparison, the smell of honest sweat would be 100% preferable and sweeter.

Maybe it would also be nice if these people could refrain from many of the disgustingly offensive remarks it seems "acceptable" to direct against smokers, people who are judged to be "over weight" etc and whichever other group of folks that can be used to support the sanctimonious, "holier-than-thou" attitudes that you can read on various threads.

OK - that's my rant over too!

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 04 Aug 07 - 07:43 AM

Unfortunately not all folks are as "considerate" as some smokers

I agree there, Em. There are SOME smokers who are considerate. Unfortunately they are more than cancelled out by the millions over the last few hundred years who have killed off countless thousands of innocent people. Smugness may be annoying, but I don't think it has ever killed anyone. If I may turn your phrase around -

Unfortunately not all smokers are as considerate as some folks which I think is demonstrated by the smug, self-righteous tone of some of the people who have killed others and don't seem to care.

I know how considerate you are though so I hope you don't take offence.

Cheers

Dave

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: Emma B
Date: 04 Aug 07 - 07:26 AM

It's not quite that simple Ernest! Not all pubs have private outdoor areas and many places do not allow you to take an alcoholic drink onto the street area so that it's not possible to both smoke and have a drink.

Before the ban I was in the smoking area of a pub during a festival but went outside to smoke as people were singing. Despite leaving my personal belongings on my seat and my drink on the table I was a little suprised to find that my seat had been taken when I returned a few minutes later and my handbag, coat etc simply tossed aside.

Unfortunately not all folks are as "considerate" as some smokers which I think is demonstrated by the smug, self-righteous tone of some of the people who have posted on these threads.

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: Ernest
Date: 04 Aug 07 - 05:30 AM

Building special shelters containing expensive hi-tech machinery just because a few people are too lazy to take a few steps outside?

Sounds a little ridiculous to me...

Regards
Ernest

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 04 Aug 07 - 03:29 AM

Oh yeah... I can see that happening... NOT! No way will the smokers pay more for their beer, regardless of what the extra money is going towards. I bet it wouldn't be long before the beer sales dropped off because the smokers would find it cheaper to drink at home, in their own comfortable, smoky surroundings, thus negating the excercise.

If a smoker sees it as their right to smoke (fair dos, it is their decision), then they will not see an extension of that being their right to pay more for their beer. That'd be like making people who take sugar in their tea pay for the sugar bowl.

Landlords have known this ban was coming for months, if not years. They should have realised that as soon as it became law in Scotland and Ireland, it would come to England sooner or later. The landlord or manager should have applied to the brewery or pub owner for the funds and support to create 'smoking shelters' or have a room put aside for them. As in so many other areas, ignorance is not an excuse.

Those pubs not owned by a chain had the same amount of notice - they may not have the big names and money behind them, but if they're doing well enough to stay independent, then they must have some capital to fall back on. I suspect that those pubs mentioned above as 'being closed by the smoking ban' are those that were already in trouble, or on a knife edge between trouble and managing. We all know that sometimes it just takes one tiny thing to overbalance us, the skill is in recognising where that balance point is. I think that the knife edge pubs failed to see that balance point and are now blaming the latest restriction rather than looking at themselves objectively to find out what the underlying problem was.

And as for the comment by the first landlady quoted right at the top - the reason the bar in the Houses of Parliament still allows smoking is because it is not a public place. The only way to get into the HoP bar is to become an MP.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: skipy
Date: 03 Aug 07 - 06:03 PM

Because that would entail buying it at the non smokers rate, the object would be that we would pay more because we are using the extra structure. Do try & keep up, or perhaps get a mudcat name.
Skipy

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: Peace
Date: 03 Aug 07 - 05:54 PM

Put someone who's off the wagon on the trolley, right?

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: GUEST
Date: 03 Aug 07 - 05:52 PM

Ale could be delivered mechanically so there is no need for staff. Why not just take turns to walk across and bring the drinks back on a tray or a trolley?

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: skipy
Date: 03 Aug 07 - 05:29 PM

LTS, I was triping well, it was a cut & paste!
Skipy

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 03 Aug 07 - 05:22 PM

I've had another two glasses of medication and decided that my ability to tripe is perfect thank you. Undt 'b' undt 'v' are next too each other mine lieber kangeroo...

:D

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 03 Aug 07 - 05:17 PM

Dave - I think it's time to review your medication again - it's affecting your ability to trype!

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: skipy
Date: 03 Aug 07 - 04:15 PM

Lets obercome these hurdles
German perhaps?
Skipy

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 03 Aug 07 - 04:05 PM

Where aretey coming to build the smoking room.?

Whuts happuned to me engrish?

Where are they going to build the smoking room

Phew, I don't think anyone noticed...

:D

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 03 Aug 07 - 03:43 PM

I honestly think that is a really good idea skipy. A couple of slight issues. Firstly - The cost. In the very first example you give, the pub mentioned is considering closing down because their takings have dropped £1000 a week. This is just 4 weeks after the ban started so it has cost them £4000. If they were forced to build a shelter like you suggest, at a cost of, what, £15,000? £20,000 - Would they not end up in just the same situation? Second. One of the other examples you mention, the one in Wales I think, says they do not have room for a smoking shelter. Where aretey coming to build the smoking room. The end result is the same - both pubs would still close. How do we get round that?

Lets obercome these hurdles before we start lobbying our MP's!

Cheers

Dave

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: Grab
Date: 03 Aug 07 - 06:42 AM

Thanks for Googling for me. I'd rather assumed that stating the bleedin' obvious (that Scotland and Ireland continue to be favourite centres for drinking in spite of bans there) would be enough. ;-)

Dave Hit: nobody can give me three names of individuals killed by passive smoking.

It's easy to name one - Roy Castle. And at the risk of relying too much on Wikipedia, this page has links/quotes for a number of studies, including an AMA study suggesting 35-40,000 deaths per year from passive smoking in the US in the early 80s, and 3-5,000 deaths per year in France. Sorry, I've not got time right now to dig out the actual studies myself.

Graham.

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: skipy
Date: 03 Aug 07 - 05:49 AM

A landlord should be allowed to built a seperate (note-seperate) building of brick construction on his land / carpark for smokers. This can be regulated by planning permission etc. Smokers will have to accept a hike in prices to use the room. It could even be run by a committee of smokers & cleaned by them. I have not yet worked out a system to ensure smokers pay the inflated cost & not the non smoking bar rate. Ale could be delivered mechanically so there is no need for staff. Payment could be electronic. You could buy credit at the pub & by using a pin number pay for your ale. These things are doable.
Skipy

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 03 Aug 07 - 03:49 AM

skipy - Sorry but your argument IS inconsistant. You insist, as on this thread, that banning smoking in pubs is damaging to pub business. You insist that the landlords should have the right to choose whether the pubs are smoking or not. You insist that non smokers have as much right to fresh air as you have to smoke. Yes? So far so good? OK - Explain this to me then. If not allowing smoking is bad for business so which landlord in thier right mind is going to ban it? All pubs will therefore allow smoking. Where, then, can the non-smokers go for a drink in a pub? See the problem?

Having smoking and non-smoking rooms just doesn't work - we know that from experience - the smoke gets everywhere. Segregation cannot work - ie some pubs smoking and some not because no-one will decide which is which and somewhere down the line it will be classed as discrimination that some people can only go in some pubs. Just use some of that reasoning that you seem to have got back recently and come up with a sensible solution. Until then, yes, I will fail to grasp wher you are coming from. You are making no sense!

Cheers

Dave

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 03 Aug 07 - 03:24 AM

It's been illegal to smoke in areas where there is open food (such as a canteen servery or restaurant sweet trolley) since I worked in catering back in 1979/1980. The law was enforceable by the landlord.

Wetherspoons and many, many other pubs have had non-smoking areas for as long as they've served food. Bit stupid if you ask me, smoke is a free-moving entity that goes where it pleases, rather than keeping to the smoking end of the bar, and there were a huge number of pubs & restaurants where to get to the non-smoking bit, you had to walk through the smoking area! Many other pubs had a 'no smoking at the bar' rule that made life easier for non-smoking bar staff.

To extend the ban to the rest of the building just makes plain sense to me, when as statistics quoted above show, less than half the population are smokers. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.

Here's a suggestion. Get the smokers in the pubs affected to match the money they spend a month on tobacco products. Put that money into a fund and help buy the pubs their smoking shelters. That way, everyone is happy. I, as a non-smoker, am not subsidising the habit in others by an extra 5p on my beer, pub keeps both our custom, the smokers get their shelter and they might just realise how much money they physically burn each month!

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: Ernest
Date: 03 Aug 07 - 02:36 AM

Big Mick,
Bill D. has already written what I would have answered.

Freedom to choose:

A driver is speeding with 200 mph, killing 10 people
or
a gunman goes around shoots 10 people at random

Brought to court they plead "not guilty, yer honour: ye see, if people didn`t like passive-speeding / passive-shooting they should`ve stayed at home...."

There is no absolute freedom, freedom is always restricted by other people`s rights.

Best
Ernest

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: GUEST
Date: 02 Aug 07 - 10:10 PM

Smoking is filthy habit. I'm so glad it's banned here in pubs in Ireland for the past few years. In my immediate neighbourhood, admittedly central Dublin, it's had no adverse effects on trade. In fact lots of smokers have cut down or given up as a result. The absence of smoke is great for the musicians in the many music pubs in the area.

Don

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: Bill D
Date: 02 Aug 07 - 09:33 PM

"landlord's right to choose"

right...and if they would ALL choose to continue allowing smoking?

I know people who think there should be no speed limits on highways, and no restrictions on heroin & other drugs, and no 'almost' no restrictions on owning firearms...etc.

Sorry, but when almost NONE of the pubs chose to stop during the last number of years this has developed, it falls to the authorities to do the choosing....for the overall benefit of those who couldn't go into a pub.

There IS no 'right' to choose a stance that is a proven danger to others.

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: Alice
Date: 02 Aug 07 - 07:53 PM

Click here

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 02 Aug 07 - 07:49 PM

One person's right to choose is always liable to mean the denial of choice to some other person, and this is no exception. The right to choose of the landloard isn't what concerns me. My right to choose does concern me. And my choice is to have the pubs I like to drink in free from tobacco smoke.

I agree that I'd prefer there to have been some loopholes to allow for places that were primarily smoking venues, such as Shisha bars. But in a society where a large majority of people do not smoke and prefer non-smoking environments public houses, which should be accessible to everyone, are rightly smoke free

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: skipy
Date: 02 Aug 07 - 07:16 PM

You certainly do! & a lot of them echo what I am saying!
Skipy

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: Ebbie
Date: 02 Aug 07 - 07:11 PM

I read a first person account once of a man who had smoked for years, had tried unsuccessfully for years to quit and was finally diagnosed with lung cancer.

And, he said, The saddest thing to discover was how easy it was to quit when it was too late.

(Just a little grist for the mill)

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: Alice
Date: 02 Aug 07 - 07:02 PM

You get some interesting results if you google "ethics of smoking ban".

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: skipy
Date: 02 Aug 07 - 06:43 PM

I really don't know where you are coming from skipy
& I don't know why you consistantly fail to comprehend my stance!
A ban on smoking in public places that are designated no smoking by the owner / landlord .............no problem, no problem at all.
The right of an owner / landord to choose is what I want.
If owner feels that his buisness will do better non smoking then so be it.
If he / she feels they would rather have smokers then so be it.
But the right to choose, that is what is important here.
Skipy

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: Big Mick
Date: 02 Aug 07 - 06:42 PM

Ernest, I can't speak for the UK, but I don't believe that is the case in the US. Remember that the smoke/non smoke, under my way of doing things is not optional. You may not do both. You are either a smoking establishment or a non smoking establishment. Assuming your predicate is true, and I don't believe it is, then the smoking ban shouldn't last long, because the majority of your voters will rise up against it and agitate to do away with the ban. Wait .. you mean there is no strong popular movement against??????? Must be a vast left wing conspiracy to hold down all the folks that like to smoke ........ he says with tongue firmly planted in cheek. Despite all the predictions in Ireland, the US cities that have enacted, and the UK, that the people would never stand for this, there has been no mass uprising. I believe the polls show that most folks support this, and the support is growing daily. Remember the things that truly change these habits. For one, when the taxes on cigarettes here in the States went up, there was a corresponding drop in usage. Doing as I have suggested would create another drop as folks that decide against patronizing smoking joints seek other places.

Outright prohibition rarely really works, as the US experiment on the alchohol front has shown. But smart legislation/taxation/litigation can be very effective in in raising price and thus deterring the habit until the amount of smokers is so small that one could do away with the nasty buggers. Done right, it doesn't infringe on personal rights in the same way that bans do.

All the best,

Mick

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 02 Aug 07 - 06:35 PM

I have neighbors (thirty-something) who are smokers but can't kick the habit. They only smoke on their front porch, in the hope that they will smoke less and their house will be cleaner.

It's really something to see them on the porch when it bitterly cold or wretchedly hot out, but that's how they cope.

Not all smokers are in favor of smoking.

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 02 Aug 07 - 06:16 PM

I really don't know where you are coming from skipy. You say you support the ban on smoking in public places yet you are campaigning for allowing smoking in pubs. What are pubs if they are not public places? Give us a consistant argument if nothing else.

Cheers

Dave

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 02 Aug 07 - 04:33 PM

I take it you'd be OK to smoke anything you wanted in these places...

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: Ernest
Date: 02 Aug 07 - 03:54 PM

Big Mick.
if you become the ruler, please grant me the sole right to sell those signs that would indicate the businesses catering smokers.

I will be damned rich because every single business would simply buy a sign and go on as before.

Thinking of it "Smokewhiner`s" would be a great name for my business...

;0)

Sincerely: this is a field where the market doesn`t work (as someone has pointed out before: it had the chance since the time tobacco was brought to Europe. Apparently publicians are to timid to try). Nothing especially wrong with that: every market needs its regulations to work properly - otherwise trusts would take over and establish a monopol

Regards
Ernest

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 02 Aug 07 - 03:37 PM

Too many pubs?? Kendall.... go wash your mouth out!!

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: kendall
Date: 02 Aug 07 - 03:35 PM

I got cancer from smoking, not from driving a car.

Maybe there are just too many pubs?

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: GUEST,happy ex pat
Date: 02 Aug 07 - 12:25 PM

What the hell is wrong with us brits,we cant drink in moderation,we would rather smoke knowing the dangers instead of socialising respectably.We look like uncivilised gits and behave like complete meat heads.In spain i look at us and wonder where it has all gone wrong and can we ever become a civilised nation,instead of the cast of Jerry Springer,the musical.Yes,i know they smoke in bars in spain,but i can sit outside in warm comfort amongst people who act responsibly and look much more civilised,god help you all.

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: Big Mick
Date: 02 Aug 07 - 12:00 PM

I believe that those problems could be overcome very simply by requiring delivery areas that are non smoking, and segregated. It would impose an additional financial burden on the business, hence increased costs for the customer, but if they are committed to their right to smoke, then they should be willing to pay it. Also, as to the issue of employees, the same rules would apply. Those that did not want to work in smoking clubs (after all, it is primarily clubs, restaraunts, pubs, and bars we are speaking of here) would simply not go there. I know, as a performer, that I have refused to play pubs without adequate ventilation. The point isn't that I am protecting smokers rights. Society doesn't seem ready to outlaw this horrible product as it should, preferring to let the market place resolve the problem, as well as peer pressure. If one is not willing to bite the bullet and outlaw this killer, then regulating its harmful effects is in order. Some feel the need to impose their values on smokers. Personally, and as an ex smoker, I don't care what they do TO THEMSELVES. If smokers are not willing to quit, that is their business, providing they don't impose their filthy habit on me. This would provide a way for them to exercise their poor judgement without imposing on the rest of us. If employers couldn't get enough customers, or employees, or performers, they would cease to exist.

I just don't believe in allowing anything that imposes others smoke on me against my will. In the abstract, I don't care if they choose to expose themselves to this poison of their own free will, just keep it away from me.

It is doable,

Mick

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: skipy
Date: 02 Aug 07 - 11:17 AM

Dave! I've never said that & wouldn't. I'm all for segregated venues with the landlord / owner choosing. Always have been & always will be.
We stopped smoking in work here about 8 years ago & guess who brought that in, yep, yours truly.
We have 2 smoking sheds here & the no smokers often sit in them with us, but there has been quite a bit of bad feeling about that over the last couple of weeks from a few individuals.
Skipy

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: Bill D
Date: 02 Aug 07 - 10:52 AM

"...allow any business that wants to cater to smokers to do so. "

And delivery men? And guys who repair things like plumbing & refrigeration units? And building inspectors? etc.... ALL these people have go into most commercial buildings, often for extended periods.

It is much more complicated than just 'allowing smokers to damage themselves if they wish'.

There are many laws to protect the public from their own stupidity in other areas; regarding drugs they are allowed access to; places and speeds they are allowed to drive; even the amount of 'noise' in workplaces without protection.

It took many years for research to prove that smoking, including 2nd hand smoke, was harmful as well as 'unpleasant' for many of us, and now that there is almost universal acceptance of the health problems of tobacco, people need to quit fighting the efforts to reduce PUBLIC restriction while we work on a gradual total ban!

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 02 Aug 07 - 10:22 AM

It looks like, from what I can see, the smoking lounges in Tokyo are not manned. I am only hazzarding a guess but if the standard refuse collection personel, supplied with appropriate hazardous materials protection (particulate masks, gloves, overalls), kept them clean it would not be an issue?

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: Jeri
Date: 02 Aug 07 - 10:14 AM

Mick, if some establishments catered to smokers, an employee must be willing to expose him/herself to second hand smoke. Employees could be discriminated against if they were unwilling or incapable of working in a toxic environment. In the US, they'd holler at (Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). In the UK, there's probably a similar organization.

A private club could get away with it, but I don't know if an establishment open to the general public could.

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 02 Aug 07 - 10:11 AM

I'd support it - As long as you stop trying to convince us that banning smoking in public places is a bad thing! Have we found common ground. This is indeed the dawn of a new era:-)

Cheers

Dave

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: skipy
Date: 02 Aug 07 - 10:08 AM

At last we all agree, now lets get it implemented!
Skipy

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 02 Aug 07 - 09:57 AM

That would be perfect for me as well, Mick. Did you see the link to Wiki? If you follow this one and look for 'effects on business' it shows a smoking 'room' in Tokyo - Smoking is prohibited on streets in some areas of Tokyo, hence smokers retreat into smoking lounges.. What a wonderful idea!

I agree wholeheartedly with your earlier logic as well.

Cheers

Dave

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: Big Mick
Date: 02 Aug 07 - 09:44 AM

What idiotic logic this is. Personally I could care less if you smoke. You have every right to destroy your own body and die a horrible, long drawn out death. So long as you do that in a way that doesn't interfere with my right not to smoke, or be exposed to a toxic substance against my will, please knock yerself out. You have no right to force me to partake in your habit under any circumstances.

We are seeing a lot of this in the States as well. I guess I would have done it differently. I would allow any business that wants to cater to smokers to do so. But it would be exclusively. I would make them put very noticable signage up that indicates it is a smoking establishment. I would not allow non smoking sections. An establishment would be assumed to be non smoking unless it had size mandated signage to the contrary. This way the market would take care of the problem. Non smokers would have a choice as to whether they wanted to go to the smoking places. The only other thing I would do would be to ban smoking in all public places. This would stop me having to walk through the filthy smoke at doors to non smoking places.

Mick

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: Bill D
Date: 02 Aug 07 - 09:31 AM

ummm...skipy...Dave Hitt is the guy whose site YOU linked to above.

and his site is full of bad arguments for 'freedom'.

Smoking is a VERY hard to break habit, and many smokers are trapped in the circular reasoning of "I can't, or don't wish to stop, therefore any semi-logic that supports MY wishes sounds good".

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: skipy
Date: 02 Aug 07 - 08:59 AM

Sorry mate, I don't know who he is.
Skipy

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 02 Aug 07 - 08:35 AM

Dave Hitt. He IS joking. Isn't he?

:D

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: skipy
Date: 02 Aug 07 - 08:33 AM

comedians who not many people find funny to your hearts content.
?????
You lost me at that point Dave.
Skipy

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 02 Aug 07 - 08:07 AM

So far we have opinions from Money Week - A well established and respected financial magazine. ASH - The UK anti-smoking lobby with the support of the Government and the Medical Profession. CAMRA - the most sucessful consumer organisation in history and Wikipedia - The starting point for so many internet enquiries.

Versus...

Dave 'the Hitman' Hitt. Who has come out with the classic line of reasoning "nobody can give me three names of individuals killed by passive smoking. Therefore nobody has been killed by passive smoking".

Hmmmm. Wonder who I believe?

I have told you skipy - I am not arguing with you any more. Your reasoning appears to have gone out of the window. Feel free to keep quoting landlords who cannot run pubs and wannabee comedians who not many people find funny to your hearts content.

I will not ignore them altogether. Just try to give another side of the coin. Assume for one minute that every smoker is against the ban and every non smoker is for it (not true I know but the best we have) then for every 34 articles you link to I will have access to 66. Odds of nearly 2 to 1 against. Fancy a bet as to who can find most? :-)

Cheers

Dave

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: Folkiedave
Date: 02 Aug 07 - 08:03 AM

In March 2007 CAMRA reported 56 closures a month.

http://www.morningadvertiser.co.uk/news_detail.aspx?articleid=28654

so there would have to be an increase on that for the smoking ban to have had an effect.

Many morris teams and folkies will have stories of pubs refusing business.

Here's mine - I rang up a pub landlady and said we were thinking of dancing outside the pub - with a group of others - total about 40 extra people. I thought I would be helping the pub to cope. "There's be glasses to wash, you'll be wanting drinks, etc etc....".

We went elsewhere.......

Thought for a thread.......

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: Mr Red
Date: 02 Aug 07 - 08:02 AM

So the warning that some marginal pubs would be weeded out

was that a filter tip?

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: Ernest
Date: 02 Aug 07 - 07:51 AM

So pubs frequented mostly by smokers close down because the smokers themselves don`t go there anymore?

Looks like it is the smokers fault then.

They chose to give up one habit (going to the pub) instead of the other (smoking) which they were asked to stop only temporarily (while inside the premises).

I pity them (seriously).
Ernest

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: skipy
Date: 02 Aug 07 - 07:00 AM

Try   http://www.davehitt.com/facts/banlinks.html
Skipy

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 02 Aug 07 - 05:40 AM

I agree - Grab. Use Google. Check out the following sites for their views.

This one from Money week is pretty impartial.

A quick search though the ASH web site will, not surprisingly, yield you more links to landlords supporting the ban than there are ones against. (NB - This site contains Flash content and may not let you link back - Open it in a seperate window!)

A little bit more surprising is the support it has received from the most sucessful consumer organisation in the world - CAMRA

Finaly, one I would never rely on just on it's own but there are many links to follow. An article in Wikipedia about bans makes some very interesting points about the effects on the licensed trade that seems to deny what is being banded about here.

Happy reading:-)

Dave

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: skipy
Date: 02 Aug 07 - 04:13 AM

For examples of smoke-free drinking, check out Scotland and Ireland. I don't believe banning smoking killed the pubs in either of those countries.

Grab, use Google.
Skipy

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 01 Aug 07 - 05:24 PM

Tough!

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 01 Aug 07 - 05:21 PM

I know I said I wouldn't argue with skipy anymore - I'm not! Big Phil, you say It would have been much easier just to let the Landlord decide on the smoking debacle. They HAVE had exactly that choice since Walter R brought the weed into this country. They decided that they couldn't be arsed to spend any money cleaning up the air. They would rather make money than help people live. There are 30 pubs near me. NOT A SINGLE ONE WAS NO SMOKING. Sorry to shout but there was not one pub I could go in without setting off an asthma attack. Is that fair? It is precisely because pubs did NOT offer the choice that the legislation had been brought in. No ifs buts (pun intended) or excuses. The pubs have brought this on themselves.

Dave.

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: Grab
Date: 01 Aug 07 - 05:18 PM

Beg pardon, I've looked up about Wetherspoons and I'm completely wrong. I must just have been lucky in only being near no-smoking Wetherspoonses!

Link interestingly *does* say that their profits went down a lot (20%) with no smoking - but does also quote a director saying "There is no doubt we have lost smokers to pubs next door. That can't happen, of course, under a universal ban." It also says that food sales went up by 10%.

href=http://business.guardian.co.uk/story/0,,1723302,00.html

I'm prepared to believe that before the ban came in, the hardcore drinkers would head for a smoking pub over a no-smoking pub, and Wetherspoons does have a "drink-till-you-drop" kind of customer base. After the ban - well, instead of going to pub A or pub B, it's a choice between going out or not going out. If your time down the pub is important to you, then we're not talking an effect, are we?

For examples of smoke-free drinking, check out Scotland and Ireland. I don't believe banning smoking killed the pubs in either of those countries.

Graham.

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: skipy
Date: 01 Aug 07 - 05:15 PM

At last, some common sense!
Skipy

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: Big Phil
Date: 01 Aug 07 - 05:10 PM

It would have been much easier just to let the Landlord decide on the smoking debacle. Either he wants a smoking pub, or he wants a non smoking pub, the smokers and non smokers can then decide on which type of pub to visit.

But I forgot, that would have been too easy to leave it to the individual to make his/her mindup, better the nanny state to tell us what to do. I am a nonsmoker, but would still visit a smoking pub, its down to individual choice, or it should be.

If smoking is such a threat to all our lives, why not ban it, end of story, oh I forgot the Government takes hundreds of millions in tax off the smokers, what a shower of double standard b@st@rds they are.

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: MBSLynne
Date: 01 Aug 07 - 04:19 PM

Pubs have been closing rather a lot in recent years, long before the smoking ban. It has become more and more difficult to make a living from just running a pub, particularly in villages. Our village used to have six and we now have three. And look at the number of pubs that are now Indian restaurants. There are all sorts of reasons for it, including the fact that people tend to go out to pubs in their cars and drink less than they did a few years ago. I think the smoking ban is just one of many factors.

Love Lynne

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: GUEST,Jim Carroll
Date: 01 Aug 07 - 02:59 PM

Swings and roundabouts,
Irish pubs did lose some customers because of the ban, but eventually those who didn't come before hand started to do so once they realised it was possible to breathe in pubs.
The two major factors now are the clampdown on drink-driving and the fact that publicans can sell their licences for astronomical amounts to anywhere in the country.
Jim Carroll
PS As far as I'm concerned smokers would be welcome anywhere if they didn't kill people and if they didn't smell.

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: Ebbie
Date: 01 Aug 07 - 12:49 PM

Way above in my last post a figure disappeared. I meant to say "In Alaska, it's (smoking regulation) within 10 feet of the door of a public building."

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: Mr Happy
Date: 01 Aug 07 - 12:02 PM

Evert time the govt. makes up a new law, there's always a windfall in the offing for someone.

This time its builders, shelter manufacturers, others?

Ye know wot they say - Every cloud has a silver lining!

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: Bill D
Date: 01 Aug 07 - 11:34 AM

The attempt to shift the focus of the issue from the health and comfort of people in general and onto the 'poor, innocent folks who just like a cigarette with their beer, and the forlorn pub owners who can't cope' is just a red herring. There is no doubt that smoking kills and causes health problems for those it doesn't kill immediately....if it were invented today, it would never be approved. and it is only a matter of time before it is banned...maybe many years, but someday....The only reason it isn't now is to avoid the economic impact and the chaos of millions of hard-core smokers having fits and causing uproar.

   Someone needs to ASK all those smokers where they go now, and where they smoke. Are they JUST staying home? Are they going to pubs which do have a place outside to smoke? No matter what the answers, things WILL sort out. Some pubs may close...but listing individual examples shows nothing.....some pubs will survive, and do well. Some smokers will quit...some will just go where they can easily nip OUT for a smoke.

25 years ago, our local sing had ashtrays set out and some of us suffered...now smoking is banned and I only know 2 of the regulars who smoke, and they seem to cope. IT IS PROGRESS ...and it is GOOD progress.

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: JeremyC
Date: 01 Aug 07 - 11:28 AM

A smoking ban just passed recently here in Ohio, and I can definitely say it's hurt business at the bar I go to most often. It's definitely better for singers (even though I smoke, myself, I can tell the difference in my voice now that I'm not in secondhand smoke all the time, though as a smoker I hate to say it).

I do think the drunks in bars are more of a problem than the smokers. Sounds like the same thing exists in the UK, really--a friend of mine who works at the Waterstones in Winchester told me that, when they had their Harry Potter release party, people from the pubs kept coming in and causing trouble, even though the customers were mostly children who had been allowed to stay up past their bedtime to get a book and a bag of sweets and chosen for a Hogwarts house. Not that I think much of Harry Potter, but these were kids holding their mother's hands, and they didn't deserve to have their evening disrupted by loud, rude, foul-mouthed drunks fresh from a night at the pub. A person is much more likely to get into a fight or cause trouble after drinking than they are after smoking, not that I have a problem with either in moderation.

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: Midchuck
Date: 01 Aug 07 - 11:17 AM

Bat Goddess said:

New Hampshire is surrounded by states that banned smoking in public places several years ago (like Maine), but didn't finally pass anti-smoking legislation until recently. It won't take effect for another couple months. The thing is, I know of a lot of people who follow our music, but won't come to The Press Room now because of the smoke level (even with smoke eaters). They WILL come (and drink! and eat) when the venue is smoke-free.

New Hampshire is also surrounded by states that have motorcycle helmet laws, but they believe in "the wind in your hair." So my sister is a widow.

Maybe they should change their motto to "Live Free and Die." Makes it sort of embarrassing to be a libertarian. Individual liberty isn't about intentionally being stupid. It's about being smart by your own free choice, rather than because someone is going to send you to jail to protect you from yourself.

But public smoking is a special case. A basic premise of libertarianism is that no one has the right to initiate the use of force or violence. How can someone blowing poison gas in my face not be considered initiating violence?

Peter.

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: webfolk
Date: 01 Aug 07 - 11:00 AM

Grab wrote,
"it's impossible to talk about no-smoking pubs without mentioning Wetherspoons, where every single pub in Britain's biggest chain of pubs has been no-smoking for as long as I can remember"

not near me they weren't.

Geoff
www.webfolk.net

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 01 Aug 07 - 10:25 AM

Skipy - You win. I can see that you will not be phased by rhyme nor reason. Neither will you let a few simple facts cloud your arguments. Let me just have one last try on this thread. Pubs have been loosing trade for years. The smoking ban may or may not have pushed some of them over the edge. It is not however the sole cause of them closing. Those that have and will close, will have closed anyway. Not a one that you mention up to now has been doing particularly well. All the smoking ban has done is speeded up the inevitable. Give us just one instance of a pub that was doing well before, losing all it's trade on July the 1st.

Anyhow, to my mind the number of people that benefit from the ban is far greater than those who lose out. And I don't just mean the 60-odd% who don't smoke having precidence over the 30-odd% who do. I am talking about the countless families who will be happy seeing their loved ones live rather than die a horrible lung disease related death. There can be no way of measuring that against the exeedingly small sacrifice that smokers have to make when they nip out for a fag.

Carry on and publish all the closures that the popular press and biased media can muster. Someone else can give the facts from the other side. I am fed up of banging my head on a wall. Tell you what though. I shall still be sat in the smoke free singaround while you stand outside with another coffin nail.

Good luck.

Dave

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: skipy
Date: 01 Aug 07 - 09:52 AM

THE landlords of a Suffolk pub have become the first victims of the smoking ban - and last night a campaign group predicted that hundreds of pubs across the country will close as a result of the controversial crackdown.

After more than two years running the Greene King-owned Elephant and Castle in Hospital Road, Bury St Edmunds, licensees Marian and Gareth Thomas have decided to call time on their business.

The couple, who had their plans for a smoking shelter outside the pub turned down, claim the smoking ban was the final straw.
Skipy

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: Alice
Date: 01 Aug 07 - 09:50 AM

No, it is not like saying that.

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: skipy
Date: 01 Aug 07 - 09:48 AM

Come on Alice, that's like saying "take all the cars off the road" to protect people!
Skipy

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: Alice
Date: 01 Aug 07 - 09:41 AM

Let's see, trying to weigh this .... 2 pubs close on one hand or thousands of people protected from
heart and lung disease from second hand smoke... hmmmm.

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 01 Aug 07 - 09:36 AM

So, Royall took over the pub 18 months ago and now reckons it is the smoking ban that has closed the pub? He took it over and then stamped his personality on it with a major refurbish. Where did he come from? What did he do before? Does he know anything Wiganers (I worked there for years and they are a traditional bunch to say the least!)? Does he know the pub trade? What other changes has he forced on the previous regulars?

Again, I don't know the guy so it would be unfair of me to suggest he is looking for an excuse for his bad management. If some people can keep or even increase their custom and some can't though I doubt very much whether the ban can be the sole culprit. Is anyone else noticing that for every incident of a pub losing trade there seems to be one that is doing better? Maybe this is what we needed to get rid of some of the crap pubs and landlords we have had to put up with before?

Again skipy - look at the Shisha cafes. They are the only genuine casualties of the ban. I am surprised the Moslem council of Britain has not become involved!

Cheers

Dave

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: Rasener
Date: 01 Aug 07 - 09:11 AM

How many is that now Skipy 2?

How many pubs are there in England ?

What % is 2 of ??????????????

Its like all these sort of arguments.

A child is abducted and all of a sudden all children are being abducted.

Somebody is murdered and suddenly everybody is murdered.

There's a shark been spotted by a beach. Bloody hell the whole of the United Kingdoms shores have sharks waiting to mutilate your bodies.

So on and so forth.

The gutter press are responsible for knee jerk reactions on many an occasion simply by plugging to death one incident.

I think things have to be put into perspective e.g. the flooding disasters are far more important than this thread.

You are still a good guy though Skipy - respect to you.

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: skipy
Date: 01 Aug 07 - 07:57 AM

A pub which introduced a smoking ban six months ahead of the national ban has been forced to close due to a lack of custom.

The Bush, in Ince near Wigan thought it was getting ahead of the game by banning smokers at ther start of the year but licensee Deejay Royall has been forced to shut the doors just weeks after the country-wide ban came in.

Royall took over the pub 18 months ago and thousands were spent transforming the interior.

He told the Wigan Evening Post: "Basically, we ran out of customers.

"We introduced a smoking ban in February, we'd had it refurbished and it was looking nice.

"People started to go to other pubs that hadn't introduced the smoking ban yet and then when it came in July they stopped coming in altogether.

"A lot of pubs will be struggling because of the ban. I'm personally gutted."

Despite being forced to close his business Royall is still a fan of the ban but believes it will force other pubs out of business.

He added: "I still think it's a good idea but one that people will have to get used to and in the short term it will spell disaster for many pubs.

"People are staying at home, buying cheap booze from the supermarkets and sitting with their friends smoking their heads off.

Another one! Skipy

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: MBSLynne
Date: 01 Aug 07 - 07:41 AM

I can't see that takings going down that much can be put down to the smoking ban. Most, if not all people go to the pub to socialise and have a drink. Ok, if they are smokers that used to include a cigarette as well, but I can't see them all staying home just because they can't smoke in the pub. Pubs are noticeably pleasanter places since the smoking ban, and I've heard even smokers say so.

Our local village pub has had a wooden gazebo thingy erected at the front for the smokers. Surely it's no big hardship for them to go outside? The landlady in question must have had some very stroppy customers if they are staying away in such quantities just because they can't smoke there. The people I know who smoke aren't staying away from the pub just because of the ban.

Love Lynne

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 01 Aug 07 - 06:34 AM

Of course we're only going to hear the horror stories of how a 'smoking' pub has been put out of business by the ban... no-one is going to print stories of people doing well and enjoying themselves... just like we only heard the sob stories from publicans who hadn't applied correctly or in time for the PEL and lost their music nights. Did we hear any stories of new clubs forming thanks to the new PEL? No, I don't think we did.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: Grab
Date: 01 Aug 07 - 06:34 AM

So the smoking ban was the final coffin nail, then... :-)

FWIW, quite a few pubs in Cambridge have been no-smoking by choice for some years now. Strangely, they're also the most popular ones. And it's impossible to talk about no-smoking pubs without mentioning Wetherspoons, where every single pub in Britain's biggest chain of pubs has been no-smoking for as long as I can remember, and it doesn't seem to have harmed their business a bit.

Graham.

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 01 Aug 07 - 06:27 AM

Now he's planning to turn it into flats.

Precisely. Cash in on the property boom, and blame the smoking restrictions.

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 01 Aug 07 - 06:26 AM

Is that the one in Stratford where I met you once, with Micca and Cat, Manitas? Very quiet when I was there if it was - Glad to hear it has bucked up.

D.

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: manitas_at_work
Date: 01 Aug 07 - 06:23 AM

I have my weekly session in a pub that has a high percentage of smokers (including the manager and staff). The manager thought that trade would die off but we now seem to have more people in than before (it's a very small pub and it's very easy to tell how many people are in).

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 01 Aug 07 - 06:16 AM

Don't get me wrong, the pub wasn't booming before

They knew the 'ban' was coming for almost a year. Why did they not do something before?

I would imagine 75 to 80 per cent of the regulars were working-class people who liked a cigarette

What a crass, patronising statement. Only working class people go in pubs and smoke? Bless 'em, poor dears. They are not like us landlords though... If that was the landlords attitude I am not surprised he is closing. What are the chances he was just looking for an excuse so he could sell to property developers anyway?

None of the ones I listed in the other thread have closed yet, btw. And they are all in a 'working class' area. In fact the Wagon and Horses was recently featured in the local press for their amazingly well designed and run smoking area - complete with heating and TV!

Keep trying though, skipy. I am sure we will eventualy find a pub that has closed exclusively due to the 'ban'. Maybe I could point you in the right direction - Try substituting 'pubs' with 'shisha cafes'

Cheers

Dave

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: Brakn
Date: 01 Aug 07 - 06:06 AM

"awful smell clinging"

My typing is getting "worser"

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: Brakn
Date: 01 Aug 07 - 06:01 AM

What Liz the Squeak said. Amen.

I go to a lot of pubs and I'd say that 90% of the customers are well pleased. You can now go out for a drink and then go home without that awful cinging onto your hair and your clothes.

Pubs that are on their arse were probably that way before the ban.

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: skipy
Date: 01 Aug 07 - 05:25 AM

Cut & Paste:-
welsh pub to close because of ban

PUB TRADE KILLED BY SMOKING BAN
A Briton Ferry pub has become one of the country's first victims of the new smoking laws.The Earl of Jersey has closed within months of the ban on lighting-up in enclosed public spaces coming into force.
Its owner Kerry Morgan, aged 50, said the pub had nowhere for people to go outside for a cigarette.
Now he's planning to turn it into flats.

"Don't get me wrong, the pub wasn't booming before," said Mr Morgan.

"But once the ban came in, there was no facility for people to smoke outside and it just emptied.

"I would imagine 75 to 80 per cent of the regulars were working-class people who liked a cigarette.

"The landlords tried their best, but the ban was the final nail in the coffin."

Mr Morgan said converting the building into homes was now the only option.
Now me again:- As stated in a previous thread, this is about building houses!
Skipy

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: Partridge
Date: 01 Aug 07 - 04:56 AM

My local prepared ahead for the ban with a very pleasant decked area outside. I have noticed that there are very few people inside and its quite busy outside, whether that will change in the winter I don't know. Even non smokers are sitting outside - it certainly can't be the sunshine - as its been mostly rain

They have redecorated inside, and it looks very good, they even provide little stickers that say just nipped out for a smoke, so that no one will remove your drink or nick your seat while you are having a smoke.

There is a really good atmosphere amongst the smokers, joking about being even worse social lepers.

Pat xx

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 01 Aug 07 - 04:31 AM

On BBC this am.

One Kent publican at least is saying his trade has nearly doubled, and is wondering where all the newbies were before the ban.

Said publican is a very happy bunny.

Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 01 Aug 07 - 04:06 AM

There are pubs all over the land closing on a weekly basis - and that was before the ban was enforced. The population of the country is changing from a going out, social drinking one to a home (because it's cheaper) or non-drinking one (health and/or religious reasons). The smoking ban may have something to do with losing some trade, but to blame it solely is wrong. The best thing to do now would be to put some elbow grease into deep cleaning the place, give it a lick of paint that isn't tobacco stain brown and entice some new customers in.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 01 Aug 07 - 03:54 AM

It is propably one of the pubs that would have closed regardless of the ban. Any pub management who rely on 34% of the population to keep them going deserve no better. Why isn't this landlady doing something to get more people in? Both smokers and non-smokers? I don't know her at all but the line it is impossible for the pub to afford new shelters for smoking customers, or even cover costs in running entertainment at the pub, such as hosting a band. is a dead giveaway. They want the custom without putting anything into it themselves.

Keep up the good work, skipy, glad you have relented on your self-imposed ban on not discussing it! :-)

Cheers

Dave

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 01 Aug 07 - 03:32 AM

Sorcha - you're saying Laramie has banned smoking in public bars?!!

How Ironic... Laramie is the cigarette of choice of Bart Simpson and co!

I used to have fairly sound lungs. In 1984 I got pleurisy. Turns out it was probably caused by my spending a week with 149 other 18-25yr olds in a fairly confined space - it was March so not exactly go outside and smoke weather. I was one of what must have been 2% who didn't smoke. 23 years later, I still feel the effects of that pleural scarring, so much so that combined with a heart condition, the doctors thought I was asthmatic. I've never smoked, but both my parents did. Enough damage was done to my lungs by other people's smoke that I don't want to sit in a room full of fug. Damage your own lungs by all means, it's your body, your choice... but it's also my body, my choice and I choose not to be exposed to cigarette smoke please.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 01 Aug 07 - 03:19 AM

I don't smoke. But I'm not precious about it, even though smoking (with help from Medway Maritime Hosital) killed my wife.

Last night, after playing for the morris, we had a beer or two and a play with the locals in the pub we'd danced outside. A couple of the people from the jam session kept going outside to smoke. It was quite disruptive of the session. The session was better while all were there. I'd rather that they had stayed and played or sung (and smoked).

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: Mr Happy
Date: 01 Aug 07 - 03:03 AM

The Villan,

'I wish the pubs in my town would go out of business, then we wouldn't have the drunken, yobbish, aggro, asbo problems that seem to be blighting most towns and villages in England.'

The 1st festival I attended post ban was Saddleworth.

I'm pretty sure the reason the pubs were so pleasant & accessible this year was precisely because of the restriction.

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: Ebbie
Date: 01 Aug 07 - 03:02 AM

"...within 100 feet of any public building..."? In Alaska, it's within feet of the door of a public building. What is it with Kansas!

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 01 Aug 07 - 02:57 AM

'Chris', above, asserted that 90% of their customers are smokers. What a godawful place for a non-smoker.

Why would a non-smoker insist on going to a place where he/she knows there will be that sort of smoking?

Smoking itself has NOT been banned, Sorcha. It has simply been banned within confined public areas (buildings).

Proposed regulations in my area ban smoking anywhere on the premises of any place with public access, or in a competing proposal within 100 feet of any public building. Either, or both, appear to have a good chance of passing.

As "interpreted" by the local Attorney General, the first would mean that you could not smoke inside your own vehicle in the remotest corner of a super WalMart parking lot (up to 1/4 mile+ from the entrance at some businesses in the area affected). The second version has elicited the "legal opinion" that it would make it illegal for most places to even provide a legal "smoking place" outside.

"Nobody who's not like me has any rights" - pretty well sums it up, although the current crop of banners (not just anti-smokers) extend it to "Anyone who isn't JUST LIKE ME should suffer and be punished for it."

John

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: Ernest
Date: 01 Aug 07 - 02:39 AM

Oh that unreasonable demand to go outside for a smoke. What an impertinence to ask of people who are handicapped by unsound lungs.

Can anyone please write/whine a protest song?

Cough
Ernest

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: Rasener
Date: 01 Aug 07 - 02:10 AM

I wish the pubs in my town would go out of business, then we wouldn't have the drunken, yobbish, aggro, asbo problems that seem to be blighting most towns and villages in England.

Skipy, sounds like your first post pub, didn't do much to prepare and cater for the smokers once the ban came in and are now whinging becuase their business has gone tits up. Same old problem, they probably don't have much up in the brainbox. Bad managers will fail.

I have to admit to feeling sorry for all the smokers who are outside the pubs as though they were criminals, but happy that the ban came in.

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: Little Hawk
Date: 31 Jul 07 - 11:45 PM

The reason for banning smoking inside buildings is simple. The smoke goes through the air in all directions and it gets inside the lungs of people who don't smoke and don't want to. It's a violation of their space. In that respect it is quite unlike alcohol. I don't get drunk because the guy next to me is drinking and my liver doesn't suffer from his habit. My lungs do suffer if the guy next to me is smoking (in a confined area).

Smoking itself has NOT been banned, Sorcha. It has simply been banned within confined public areas (buildings). And that's why.

And it was not banned inside anywhere because it's "enjoyable" either. This is not a killjoy operation. I DON'T enjoy it. No non-smoker enjoys it, and even most smokers don't enjoy breathing secondhand smoke coming from other smokers. I'd like to have a choice about the matter. If someone does enjoy smoking, as many do, they are perfectly free to do it out in the open air where the smoke can easily disperse. That is not a "ban".

A ban is when you don't allow people to do something at all.

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: Janie
Date: 31 Jul 07 - 11:33 PM

Where I live in the USA (along what is called Tobacco Rd. btw) smoking has been banned in most public places for long enough that I am always a bit shocked when I go into an establishment elsewhere and find people smoking. I've been hauling my tail outside for asmoke for at least 10 years, and and don't think a thing about it. And neither do other smokers, as far as I can tell.

As others have said, I predict smokers will soon adjust their habits and their expectations, and look at going outside as an opportunity to stretch their legs.

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: M.Ted
Date: 31 Jul 07 - 11:19 PM

Smoking and drinking together are factors connected with esphageal cancer. From first hand observation, I can tell you that that is quite an unpleasant way to go out of business--

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: Ebbie
Date: 31 Jul 07 - 10:41 PM

Does anyone seriously think that if tobacco and its uses had just been discovered it would be legal? Smoking tobacco makes the heart race and inhaling causes dizziness, stale butts smell bad, ash trays are a hazard, first-hand smoke has a deleterious effect on lungs and arteries and leads to heart disease and emphysema, second-hand smoke is implicated in a myriad of syndromes and diseases, burning cigarettes have burnt down countless homes and businesses as well as ruined forests and grass fields for years to come. And it's not just burning tobacco that has bad effects- chewing tobacco causes a host of other ailments.

And we're supposed to feel sorry for the addict?

(I loved smoking all the years that I had the habit)

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: Sorcha
Date: 31 Jul 07 - 10:08 PM

Yea, ban it ALL. Booze included. If it's in any way enjoyable it should be illegal.

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: Little Hawk
Date: 31 Jul 07 - 08:57 PM

So....legislation limiting one addictive drug trade is interfering with the survival of another?

Where's Al Capone when we need him? ;-)

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: Ebbie
Date: 31 Jul 07 - 08:51 PM

'Chris', above, asserted that 90% of their customers are smokers. What a godawful place for a non-smoker.

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: skipy
Date: 31 Jul 07 - 08:16 PM

Can't agree more.
Skipy

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 31 Jul 07 - 08:02 PM

"In the U/K you have to strap a child in & not use the phone, well that happens all the time!"

There are some irresponsible fools who fail to strap their children in, and others who use mobile phones while driving. They are very much in a minority, and deserve to be treated with the same contempt as drunken drivers.

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: Bat Goddess
Date: 31 Jul 07 - 07:56 PM

My mother finally apologised to me a few years ago for smoking in the (usually closed) car when I was a child -- and then wondering why I was carsick.

My Dad quit smoking around 1980 because of his emphysema (and landing in the hospital with the emphysema aggravated by pneumonnia -- he passed away in 2000) -- Mom held out for a few more years.

New Hampshire is surrounded by states that banned smoking in public places several years ago (like Maine), but didn't finally pass anti-smoking legislation until recently. It won't take effect for another couple months. The thing is, I know of a lot of people who follow our music, but won't come to The Press Room now because of the smoke level (even with smoke eaters). They WILL come (and drink! and eat) when the venue is smoke-free.

And this singer will be very pleased, too!!!

Linn

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: skipy
Date: 31 Jul 07 - 07:48 PM

In the U/K you have to strap a child in & not use the phone, well that happens all the time!
Skipy

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: Becca72
Date: 31 Jul 07 - 07:37 PM

In Bangor, Maine they recently banned smoking in any vehicle that a child is in. I love the idea and think it should be state-wide but I don't know how it would fly.

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: Sorcha
Date: 31 Jul 07 - 07:33 PM

There are a couple towns in Wyo that have banned it, but I 'think' only 2...Cody? and Laramie for sure. Laramie is the 'Boulder, CO' of Wyoming, grin...in Laramie you can't even smoke outside in a parking lot, or rent a smoking motel room!

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: Becca72
Date: 31 Jul 07 - 07:27 PM

Sorry, Sorcha...just realized what I said implied all of the US. It's spreading quickly but here in Maine smoking in bars was banned 2 or 3 years ago to very little hubub.

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: skipy
Date: 31 Jul 07 - 07:27 PM

I know one pub that is taking £3500 less a week! than normal, and one pub that has laid off 2 bar staff + another that is now open 4 day a week instead of 7, all very local

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: Bill D
Date: 31 Jul 07 - 07:11 PM

some things WILL change for awhile, but life in general will be better in the long run.

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: skipy
Date: 31 Jul 07 - 06:48 PM

Smoking population is 34%.
Skipy

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 31 Jul 07 - 06:42 PM

Doesn't seem to be making the slightest difference in my local. Except that it's a much more pleasant place to be. Same regulars, same numbers, the odd one pops out for a fag from time to time.

I'm sure there will be pubs where it will make a difference, for a time anyway. I mean, a pub where 90 per cent of the users smoked must have been a pretty extreme environment for the 70 or 80 per cent of the population who don't smoke, and they aren't going to change overnight the reasonable habit of giving it a wide berth. Give them time and they'll venture in, and the smokers are mostly going to adjust.

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: Sorcha
Date: 31 Jul 07 - 06:32 PM

We can still smoke in bars in my town.

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: skipy
Date: 31 Jul 07 - 06:26 PM

A small number! Google it!
Skipy

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: Becca72
Date: 31 Jul 07 - 06:12 PM

We banned smoking here in the States quite awhile ago now (2,3 years??) and at first the numbers of customers did drop a little bit. BUT, the nonsmokers who had been staying away because they didn't want to deal with the smoke started coming in, and the smokers eventually tired of their "Protest" and came back around. We had the same panicked "you can't ban smoking in bars or we'll go out of business!!" attitude here. And while I'm sure a small number did close the vast marjority are doing just as well if not better 2 or 3 years later.

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: skipy
Date: 31 Jul 07 - 06:08 PM

I don't know them so I can't say, however I do know that thing around here are not going well at all.
Skipy

Subject: RE: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 31 Jul 07 - 06:06 PM

I'm tempted to say tough shit, but in reality, it will level out eventually, let's hope they can hang on.
G

Subject: BS: Smoking ban closing pubs, it's started!
From: skipy
Date: 31 Jul 07 - 06:03 PM

NOW BEHAVE & KEEP THIS RATIONAL!
Cut & paste:-
Smoking ban may cause pub to close

Smoking ban may cause pub to close
A TRADITIONAL pub in Redhill may be forced to close because the smoking ban has slashed trade by half.
Landlady of The Crown, in Nutfield, Sharon Murphy, has told the Surrey Mirror that the pub has lost half of its takings since the beginning of July when the ban was introduced.
The 46-year-old added: "I'm not even close to my targets. I used to make somewhere between £2,000 and £2,500 a week, but now its less than £1,000."
"I'm extremely worried about my job - if my takings are the same this week as last, I don't think we will survive longer than a month.
"If it has to close it will be very ,very sad - I've put everything into it and to lose it would be like losing a piece of myself."

Sharon said the loss of business means it is impossible for the pub to afford new shelters for smoking customers, or even cover costs in running entertainment at the pub, such as hosting a band.


Her 20-year-old son, Chris, who works at the bar five days a week said: "Ninety per cent of our customers are smokers and they just don't stay as long - instead of having two or three pints and a smoke they just have the one and leave."
Chris said The Crown has been closing early for the past few days because the smoking ban has killed trade.
"We could lose our jobs over this - it's really bad. We're both really stressed about things and it's not good for either of us."
Chris, who is a smoker, finds he cannot take cigarette breaks if there are customers in the pub because he is not allowed to leave the bar unmanned.
Sharon Murphy said she owes it to the customers to stay optimistic for the future and hopes things will improve once the ban has settled down, but remains angry at the Government for implementing an ill-thought out ban that has wrecked her business.
"I can't see any other reason why I've lost the trade that I have and the funny thing is the one bar you can smoke in is in the Houses of Parliament."
Skipy