There’s going to be a ban of some sort, due to public pressure. The question isn’t whether we’re going to have a ban; it’s what type of ban it will be. My suggestion is intended to satisfy public demand for a ban while also pleasing the ban’s opponents. It’s not ideal, but it leaves a lot more freedom in place than an outright ban. Of course, if I were King, I’d just have all smokers’ lips amputated, which would be simpler and more fun and, as long as I didn’t bother with anaesthetic or professional surgeons, cheaper.
> you need an army of people to monitor them
We already have an army of people to monitor whether licensed premises are fulfilling the terms of their license. I see no reason to make that army any bigger just because of yet another licensing regulation.
> the tax break would effectively force breweries to make all pubs non-smoking
Er, no, because, if there were fewer than 30% smoking pubs, the tax breaks would work in the other direction. The most sensible option for any brewery would therefore be to make between 30% and 50% of their pubs non-smoking. Which would be great. (I mentioned tax breaks, but there are probably other incentives that work better.)
> State mandated exercise, all in the name of saving the NHS a few quid.
Yeah, that’s posible. Trouble is, as long as you have an NHS, the arguments for the government to improve public health are sound and reasonable. If you paid for your own health, you might well choose to reduce your costs by living healthily; it should hardly be a surprise that the government uses the same reasoning. Which is yet another reason to scrap the NHS.
]]>But here’s the killer argument: All of Dublin’s pubs now smell of BO, stale beer and sweat, instead of smoke. Not so great an improvement, really. It might not kill you, but it’s fucking unpleasant.
]]>I quite like your idea about setting targets, but what would happen if no-one wanted to allow smoking?
]]>Matthew,
You may be right. I haven’t read the act, but I had concluded from all the constant harping from its advocates about "public places" that the bill mentioned public places. Come to think of it, that was a silly and naive conclusion.
I still think this goes a significant step further than previous legislation in undermining private property rights, though. Existing laws have regulated and controlled what may be done in licensed premises, but haven’t drawn a strict line between behaviour that is banned in pubs but legal elsewhere. Slippery-slope arguments are often bollocks, admittedly, but this does look very much like the thin end of a wedge to me.
]]>However, I’m not happy with this on principle: I don’t want to live in an authoritarian loonatorium like Singapore, even if it is an authoritarian loonatorium with cleaner streets, fewer drunken punch-ups and lower cleaning bills.
]]>Does it explicitly? I didn’t see that, all i read seemed to mean public as in ‘the public are admitted’. And on that the government already regulates loads of things in pubs, from the size of the drinks to the hours they can open, to the no.of fire exits. You may think that’s wrong, but it’s not a dramatic development surely?
]]>Pros, that is.
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