BS: The smoking ban & pubs

Subject: BS: The smoking ban & pubs
From: skipy
Date: 16 Mar 08 - 07:44 PM

http://www.morningadvertiser.co.uk/news_detail.aspx?articleid=57964
Work it out for yourselves
Skipy

Subject: RE: BS: The smoking ban & pubs
From: GUEST,redsnapper
Date: 16 Mar 08 - 07:47 PM

And the future decrease in passive smoking deaths?

RS

Subject: RE: BS: The smoking ban & pubs
From: skipy
Date: 16 Mar 08 - 07:50 PM

Not one, repeat not one death cert. ever has stated passive smoking, it is myth

Subject: RE: BS: The smoking ban & pubs
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 16 Mar 08 - 08:03 PM

Myth only because it is not reported in that form. The reports denote the cause- cancer, emphysemia, etc.

Subject: RE: BS: The smoking ban & pubs
From: skipy
Date: 16 Mar 08 - 08:09 PM

Have a google, there is no evidence of anyone being effected by secondhand smoke. However it will close a lot of your folk clubs etc.
As I am not a singer or a muscian it will not effect me, you have brought it on yourselves by letting it happen

Subject: RE: BS: The smoking ban & pubs
From: bobad
Date: 16 Mar 08 - 08:24 PM

".....there is no evidence of anyone being effected by secondhand smoke"

Tell that to Heather Crowe

Subject: RE: BS: The smoking ban & pubs
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 16 Mar 08 - 08:28 PM

Roy Castle never smoked

I suspect that pubs closing are far more affected by other things - beer sales in supermarkets and growing awareness of the risks of driving after drinking (not least, the risk of getting caught driving above the limit), plus the profit to be made by putting up housing developments on pub sites.

Any idea of rolling back on the smoking or the driving front would be daft and irresponsible. But cutting the tax on beer in pubs and making up the revenue by putting up the tax on sales elsewhere would make a lot of sense.

Subject: RE: BS: The smoking ban & pubs
From: number 6
Date: 16 Mar 08 - 08:41 PM

I wonder how many deaths have been a result of pickled eggs ?

biLL

Subject: RE: BS: The smoking ban & pubs
From: bobad
Date: 16 Mar 08 - 08:50 PM

Don't know about deaths biLL but I bet a lot of guys were relegated to a night on the couch by their bed mates after a night of beer and pickled eggs. Don't forget the pickled tongues.

Subject: RE: BS: The smoking ban & pubs
From: Ernest
Date: 17 Mar 08 - 03:09 AM

How many deaths have been caused by passive thinking?

Apart from the newer quotation we have had this discussion a while ago and none of your arguments was - or is - getting more convincing, skipy.

Sorry.

Regards
Ernest

Subject: RE: BS: The smoking ban & pubs
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 17 Mar 08 - 03:34 AM

Face the fact skipy - the ban is here and here to stay. None of the evidence you present, no matter how valid, is likely to change that.

DC

Subject: RE: BS: The smoking ban & pubs
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 17 Mar 08 - 04:01 AM

Oh for heavens sake, give it up skipy.

Even the article itself says that pub closures are NOT due to the smoking ban. In case you missed it the first quote given is

"Britain's pubs are grappling with spiralling costs, sinking sales, fragile consumer confidence and the impact of the smoking ban," said BBPA chief executive Rob Hayward.

If the chief executive of the British beer and pub association is blaming spiraling costs, sinking sales and fragile consumer confidence as well as the smoking ban, then why can you not just accept that these pubs would have closed anyway?

Go and live somewhere else if smoking in pubs is that important to you but stop pestering the majority of people who agree with the ban.

BTW - I was going to wait until the anniversary of the ban to mention this but remember that long list of pubs near me that I gave in your other thread? Guess how many have closed. None. Not a single one.

There was one or two pubs in particular that you mentioned near you. Have they closed?

Cheers

Dave

Subject: RE: BS: The smoking ban & pubs
From: Rasener
Date: 17 Mar 08 - 04:01 AM

Although it may not be the same, the demise of the pub can be the rising of the village hall. I would much rather see the village hall survive.
Have a look at this. http://www.dontpassgas.org/?gclid=CNzilq_Wk5ICFQhCMAodVjAh7Q

Once you get through the intro page, look for the little white dots on the picture and point the mouse at each one. There should be enough evidence there Skipy.

Subject: RE: BS: The smoking ban & pubs
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 17 Mar 08 - 05:21 AM

Two pubs have closed in recent times in my town. They were dumps, dirty and scruffy and mostly empty. That's why they closed, nothing to do with smoking bans. Who wants to sit in a dump rather than in their own home?

The demise of pubs has far more to do with cheap booze sold in supermarkets than it has to do with forcing smokers outside to practice their horrible habit. IMHO.

Subject: RE: BS: The smoking ban & pubs
From: Thompson
Date: 17 Mar 08 - 05:45 AM

In Ireland, the sick leave of bar staff from upper respiratory infections has plunged in the time since smoking in pubs was banned.

If you feel that your desire to smoke overrides the right of working men and women to have a safe workplace, fine...

Subject: RE: BS: The smoking ban & pubs
From: GUEST,Watney
Date: 17 Mar 08 - 07:51 AM

A British association that speaks for landlords has confirmed that a record number of public houses have closed since the smoking ban and unemployment among bar staff is at a record level. They say it's not all down to cheap supermarket booze. A lot of public houses have built luxury smoking areas adjusted to the properties to encourage smokers to return, gone are the open air bus shelter smoking areas.

I think it's fantastic, I also think the extra 11 pence on a packet of twenty this week is brilliant.

As a smoker and a drinker my friends and I just hop onto a cheap flight to mainland Europe and buy a load of cigarettes (19.00 Euros for 200) and a stock of booze and bring it home. House parties are on the increase and much better fun.

Shopkeepers are losing out on cigarette sales, landlords are closing up shop and all the moaners about smoking are paying the extra taxes the government slip onto other goods to re coup their increasing losses.

It doesn't annoy me and I get a cheap holiday out of it too !

Subject: RE: BS: The smoking ban & pubs
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 17 Mar 08 - 08:18 AM

If someone says "There is no evidence that..." be suspicious. Usually, they want you to think that the thing there is "no evidence for" is therefore not true. In fact, it could mean that they don't know of the evidence that does exist, or that there is no proof, or that not enough research has been done, or that the "pro" lobby has presented partial evidence only. And in the case of the pharmaceutical industry for example, it could mean that evidence has been deliberately suppressed. I mean, there's no evidence that the far side of Saturn isn't peopled by little green men either.   And I don't have to hang my wooden-bodied harmonicas out in a net bag on the washing line any more to get rid of the disgusting smell. Grow up, smokers.

Subject: RE: BS: The smoking ban & pubs
From: redsnapper
Date: 17 Mar 08 - 08:56 AM

I'm afraid some of them won't Steve.

RS

Subject: RE: BS: The smoking ban & pubs
From: redsnapper
Date: 17 Mar 08 - 08:59 AM

By the way, I had to give up gigging several times a week a few years ago due to the passive smoke I was inhaling for hours at a time and which made me feel quite ill (I have never smoked). I can now go into a pub to play music or simply to drink and it has now become a pleasure again.

RS

Subject: RE: BS: The smoking ban & pubs
From: Bee
Date: 17 Mar 08 - 09:11 AM

The public places smoking ban has been in foece here for quite a few years. It hasn't had any noticeable effect on urban drinking spots. A few years before that, however, the province cracked right down on driving under the influence, and that killed quite a number of rural taverns. It just became entirely too difficult for people to get home from having even a couple of beers. Some pubs tried running little buses or vans all around the countryside to take people home, but changes and increases in insurance policies killed that effort.

Subject: RE: BS: The smoking ban & pubs
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 17 Mar 08 - 09:29 AM

House parties might be all right for serious drinking - but I value pubs as places you can drop into for a pint and maybe run into a friend or two, or just sit in the corner and do a crossword and see the world go by.

Pubs are valuable resources, and need to be protected against unfair competition from supermarkets. But not at the expense of our lungs. As I said, cut the taxes and the prices in pubs, and put up the tax in shops. And a separate queue for buying drink wouldn't be a bad idea either.

Subject: RE: BS: The smoking ban & pubs
From: Nick
Date: 17 Mar 08 - 09:40 AM

It must make Dave Swarbrick's gigging a little better than it used to be. Some while back in the smoking days when I last saw him play with Martin Carthy in York everyone had to be asked NOT to smoke as otherwise he would be unable to perform (or breathe for that matter).

I feel really sorry for people who are stuck with smoking - it's an addiction which I know I found very difficult to stop (first thing in the morning it used to be the untipped Gitanes hanging out of the window to get the nicotine levels up as my wife preferred me not to smoke in the bedroom). I personally don't care whether people smoke or not but I much prefer a non smoking environment now I have got used to it and wouldn't wish to go back. Perhaps a measure of the hold that smoking has on people and why they are so keen to do anything to be able to satisfy their addiction is illustrated by the following - when my father was diagnosed with lung cancer in 1965 he went and had his lung removed at Brompton Hospital. The people there were all there with cigarette related lung problems suffering from cancer or advanced emphysema etc My father related to me a story about how one of the people who had had his leg amputated because of the circulatory problems he had would still manage to drag himself (fairly literally) off to the toilets so that he could sneak a quick smoke of a cigarette.

Subject: RE: BS: The smoking ban & pubs
From: theleveller
Date: 17 Mar 08 - 09:40 AM

Personally, I'd rather lose my club than lose my life. In fact, it has made no difference whatsoever to the clubs I go to - actually, it has, there seems to be even more singers coming now. Not one smoker has stopped coming and the atmosphere for singers is much better.

If pub takings are down as a result of smokers staying at home, it seems to me that landlords will welcome any attempt to drum up more trade - such as encouraging folk clubs. So we might end up with more clubs, not less.It's a win-win situation.

Subject: RE: BS: The smoking ban & pubs
From: Beer
Date: 17 Mar 08 - 09:57 AM

Mum was told years back when smoking wasn't that big an issue to stop by her Doctor. She told him(which was true) that she never smoked a cigarette in her life. She lived in a house full of smoke. She died last year but not from second hand smoke. I'm not saying that second hand smoke won't kill. I'm just stating a fact. Since I gave up 4 years ago I simply can't be around the stink. Man I must have reeked when I was around people.
Beer (adrien)

Subject: RE: BS: The smoking ban & pubs
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 17 Mar 08 - 10:03 AM

Vin Garbutt once said that he was singing in a folk club that had an extractor fan to suck all the smoke out. Unfortunately, it was on the wall behind the stage, so all the smoke got sucked in his direction on its way out!

Subject: RE: BS: The smoking ban & pubs
From: GUEST,Ol' Smokey
Date: 17 Mar 08 - 03:47 PM

Skipy, you have my complete support.

The ban was the last nail in the coffin for small local pubs, and that has become more obvious with the onset of cold weather.

The argument against passive smoking is a very weak one in my opinion, as those who object to a smokey atmosphere are usually perfectly capable of removing themselves from it if they feel they are in any danger or discomfort.

Some seem to regard the ban as some kind of victory - I personally think that attitude is pathetic, short-sighted and small-minded.

Subject: RE: BS: The smoking ban & pubs
From: theleveller
Date: 17 Mar 08 - 04:17 PM

"those who object to a smokey atmosphere are usually perfectly capable of removing themselves from it"

Why the hell should we have to? How would you like it if I stood next to you and farted all night? Fortunately, we've now removed you - or at least your disgusting habit.

Subject: RE: BS: The smoking ban & pubs
From: Wesley S
Date: 17 Mar 08 - 04:19 PM

So what's so difficult about walking outside for a smoke? What kind of hardship is that? Insurmountable?

Subject: RE: BS: The smoking ban & pubs
From: Bee
Date: 17 Mar 08 - 04:20 PM

Ol' Smokey, I still smoke a little myself, but really, it's one thing to say customers can come or go, but the staff have little choice - jobs aren't lightly given up.

My younger sister has mild asthma. She's also extremely accommodating and hates to inconvenience anyone, especially her big sister. Years ago, while visiting in winter, I asked if she minded if I had a cigarette by the slightly open window, and she said 'sure'. Ten minutes later, I could hear the breath just wheezing in her lungs. I was horrified, and have never lit up anywhere near her since, certainly not indoors.

I can fill my own home with smoke if it so pleases me. There's no good reason for me to force other people to put up with it.

Subject: RE: BS: The smoking ban & pubs
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 17 Mar 08 - 04:21 PM

Interesting article from a reliable source, The Mayo Clinic:
Secondhand smoke

"Secondhand smoke: Avoid Dangers in the Air You Breathe."

On my own part, I will not attend any facility or concert where smoking is permitted. And I do like folk music!

Subject: RE: BS: The smoking ban & pubs
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 17 Mar 08 - 04:25 PM

"The argument against passive smoking is a very weak one in my opinion, as those who object to a smokey atmosphere are usually perfectly capable of removing themselves from it if they feel they are in any danger or discomfort."

Typical of the selfish twaddle spouted by addicts, and the cause of them being thrown out ofd the door to suck on their coffin nails.

If you feel justified in enveloping me in a cloud of second-hand smoke - the waste product of your smoking - then presumably you wouldn't feel aggrieved if I came up to you and gave you a liberal coating of the waste product of my drinking?

Subject: RE: BS: The smoking ban & pubs
From: GUEST,Ol' Smokey
Date: 17 Mar 08 - 04:48 PM

Heck, I've given up going in pubs - what more do you want? A hanging? A little tolerance wouldn't go amiss - most smokers are willing to compromise, and in my experience most non-smokers don't actually care.

Subject: RE: BS: The smoking ban & pubs
From: Rasener
Date: 17 Mar 08 - 05:08 PM

I do

Subject: RE: BS: The smoking ban & pubs
From: GUEST,Watney
Date: 17 Mar 08 - 05:13 PM

Smokers have rights too, hope the government raises income tax and drink as a smoker and a drinker I buy mine aboard !

Smokers must remember that 20 cigarettes cost 28 pence to produce, the rest of the cost is taxation. So if a smoker requires hospitalisation due to a smoking relating disorder, you more than paid for your bed.

These moaners above should give their fees back to the clubs they played in as a protest to them allowing smoking for all those years.

Maybe the fees they earned wouldn't amount to the price of twenty !

Subject: RE: BS: The smoking ban & pubs
From: Ernest
Date: 17 Mar 08 - 05:19 PM

"most smokers are willing to compromise"

and

"those who object to a smokey atmosphere are usually perfectly capable of removing themselves from it if they feel they are in any danger or discomfort"

sounds like an absolutely great compromise.

On the other hand, the quote

"I personally think that attitude is pathetic, short-sighted and small-minded"

fits in nicely here.

Regards
Ernest

Subject: RE: BS: The smoking ban & pubs
From: GUEST,Ol' Smokey
Date: 17 Mar 08 - 05:21 PM

Rights? I think not, old boy.. not if it were left to this lot.
Still, they'll all die of something nice I expect :-)

Subject: RE: BS: The smoking ban & pubs
From: Wesley S
Date: 17 Mar 08 - 05:30 PM

No one is saying that smokers can't smoke. Just go outside where it can dissipate. What so difficult about that?

Subject: RE: BS: The smoking ban & pubs
From: Rasener
Date: 17 Mar 08 - 05:33 PM

If you had any guts Ol Smokey,you would give up on the smoking. You are weak and can't break the habit. You need help.

Subject: RE: BS: The smoking ban & pubs
From: Joybell
Date: 17 Mar 08 - 05:41 PM

I did go outside when I went into bronchospasm from breathing second-hand smoke. I had to -- or give up breathing. You can probably guess how that affected my job as a singer. AND my career as a nurse (hospitals allowed smoking here). You can probably guess why I had to give up going ANYWHERE, for work, shopping, or pleasure, for 20 years.
Joy

Subject: RE: BS: The smoking ban & pubs
From: GUEST,Ol' Smokey
Date: 17 Mar 08 - 05:42 PM

You're quite right, TV, but meanwhile.. that's not really the issue. I personally am not the issue, I don't play in pubs any more. Never liked sessions much anyway, too many bodhrans.

Subject: RE: BS: The smoking ban & pubs
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 17 Mar 08 - 05:58 PM

Smokers were a minority in most pubs. Often a very small minority. Now they are a small minority outside pubs.

But I wish people didn't feel a a need to be aggressive about this, and think they had a right to do so. I mean acertain type of non-smoker. All right most people prefer not to smoke, and there are very serious health risks associated with smoking - but you could say the same thing about homosexuality. We rightly recognise that kind of talk in that context as intolerant and unacceptable.

Smoking in pubs was unpleasant for non-smokers, but it's a thing of the past, and it won't be coming back. The same should be true of the hate talk.

Subject: RE: BS: The smoking ban & pubs
From: GUEST,Ol' Smokey
Date: 17 Mar 08 - 06:02 PM

Well said sir.

Now I'm off for me fag break.

Subject: RE: BS: The smoking ban & pubs
From: Rasener
Date: 17 Mar 08 - 06:12 PM

LOL Why are you breaking your fags :-)

Subject: RE: BS: The smoking ban & pubs
From: GUEST,Ol' Smokey
Date: 17 Mar 08 - 06:44 PM

The reassembly is very theraputic :-)

Subject: RE: BS: The smoking ban & pubs
From: GUEST,Stranger
Date: 17 Mar 08 - 06:53 PM

As a gigging musician, it is a pleasure to not have to breathe the smokey air in either a pub, cafe, or coffee house.

Next it should be banned outside, also. It is polluting good air. Ever been to the beach trying to breathe a nice lake breeze and have to put up with someone smoking? What right do they have? Your own house or your own care, and that's it. See, I can be tolerant.

Subject: RE: BS: The smoking ban & pubs
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 17 Mar 08 - 06:59 PM

"It is polluting good air" Do you drive to your gigs, Stranger?

Subject: RE: BS: The smoking ban & pubs
From: Bee
Date: 17 Mar 08 - 07:07 PM

Hey, hey, Backwoodsman and Villan! Is there a need to broadbrush all smokers as weak, selfish and villainous? You apparently don't think my opinion as a smoker, which agrees entirely with the principle of not smoking where others are affected by it, suggested that some smokers might have a moral compass?

That's part of the problem, the vitriol and demonization of people who certainly are addicted, for whatever reason, and there are many!

Most smokers around here didn't utter a complaint when the smoking bans came in. We saw it as inevitable and the right thing to do. The big whiners were the liquor establishment owners.

But honestly, far too many non-smokers treat us as if we eat babies for breakfast, instead of quietly indulging a bad habit mostly out of sight and smell of any member of the public.

I personally am revolted by people who spit in the street, and from the look of mainstreet sidewalks almost anywhere, a whacking large number of people do. It's horribly unsanitary, I cringe when I see kids touching sidewalks. But I don't think spitters should be crucified over the habit, nasty as it is, just asked to take it off the public streets.

Subject: RE: BS: The smoking ban & pubs
From: GUEST,Ol' Smokey
Date: 17 Mar 08 - 07:08 PM

Tolerantly and in a spirit of open-minded fairness, I expect.

Subject: RE: BS: The smoking ban & pubs
From: GUEST,OS
Date: 17 Mar 08 - 07:13 PM

Stranger driving to gigs, that is.. got overtaken there.

Subject: RE: BS: The smoking ban & pubs
From: GUEST,Stranger
Date: 17 Mar 08 - 09:07 PM

Yes, I drive to gigs because I play in a wide area. Puhhhlease do not give me that self righteous crap about air pollution from cars. I drive a very "green" car and am not going to walk 30 miles to a gignor take my PA system on a bus.

Comparing that to cigarette smoking is really pretty holier than thou.