Absolutely top post from Harry of The Place on the stupidity of smoking bans in pubs. I’ve become so pissed off by society’s rising levels of sanctimonious prissyness towards smoking that I’m seriously considering applying for a job in BAT’s marketing department…
Against all odds, Peter Cuthbertson says something extremely sensible in the comments: "The most pathetic part of these comments is that some commenters have clearly internalised the idea that they possess some sort of natural right not to be bothered or irritated by other people’s smoke – even when they choose to venture onto private property owned by others. To anyone who believes in freedom/property, that makes about as much sense as saying that no one who finds the crying of babies irritating should be forced to listen to it, even if they choose to visit the homes of parents of young children. Nutters."
There was a screaming baby on my packed, rush-hour commuter train today. Its cries made my journey far more unpleasant than sitting opposite a man smoking big cigars would have done (even though the smell of smoke early in the morning does tend to make me retch). However, because I’m not a complete mentalist, I have no plans to lobby the train company to ban babies from its trains. Nor did I go up to its mother and say "excuse me, please can you put that baby out?".
I don’t know: I don’t find your comparison with the baby fair. Maybe I just don’t mind people not being able to smoke on a train, but do think it’s a bit not on not allowing babies on trains.
However, the whole public smoking ban is absurd. We could end up in the situation where is it entirely legal to do something which everyone agrees is actually quite bad for your health (not that this is any reason to ban it, as such) but it’s not possible to do it except in your own home. A pretty messed up situation.
The actual plans are absurd: banning smoking in pubs "which don’t prepare food". I mean, WTF? What does food have to do with anything? If people don’t want to eat a proper meal with smokers about, then the market will deal with it: most restaurants/cafes have proper (as in air-con’ed) non-smoking areas. But why can’t one have a smoke, a pint and a bar snack? Or is there some research I haven’t seen showing that eating in the presence of 2nd-hand smoke is worse than simply breathing 2nd-hand smoke? I think not.
"Among the proposals is the suggestion that smoking be banned at bus stops where there is a shelter and sides.
Places like football stadiums and railway stations could also be hit."
Sigh. Yeah, because standing next to someone in the street who’s smoking is soooo much better than standing under a bus shelter with a smoker.
Why not just ban smoking at the bar, and insist that pubs actually install vaguely functional air conditioning systems in their non-smoking sections?
Although I generally agree with you, I’m not convinced by this particular analogy, since even if you don’t buy the passive smoking argument it’s much easier to mask the sound of a crying baby (why do you think iPods were invented?) than it is to tone down the effect of cigarette smoke.
Personally, though, I’d far sooner ban people like the woman opposite me this morning whose perfume was so overpowering that she stank out the whole carriage.
(Sorry – that was a reply to John, not Matt, though I agree with Matt as well)
I always got the feeling they banned smoking on trains because it saves on cleaning – but the health stuff is a useful way of selling it to the punters. Bit like all that bollocks you see in hotel bathrooms about not always replacing the towels in order save the environment (and the laundry bill).
Not sure about all the sanctimonious bollocks in the press, I have been for a few sherberts in Dublin where, of course, there is no smoking in pubs, clubs and restaurants. It was brilliant, even as a smoker – no blue fug, your clothes and hair didn’t stink after five mins and if, like me, you’re partial to a smoke, you nip outside for five mins, have a chat with your new found friends, and then go back inside and carry on getting wasted.
If you’re weighing pros and cons, babies have more than cigarettes. I think even the devoutest of smokers knows that.
My ideal would be for the government to pick a minimum proportion — say 30% — of pubs that should be non-smoking or smoking in any given town (with exemption for one-pub villages), and give tax breaks to encourage things in that direction. So, as long as a town has fewer than 30% non-smoking pubs, give landlords financial incentives to go non-smoking, but do the same if there are fewer than 30% smoking pubs. Then everyone would be happy, apart from the fascists.
I reckon the most seditious part of this legislation is the definition of pubs as public places. Any MP who supported the ban still should have opposed that wording. Expect this and all future government to gleefully wield their new-found power over "public" places with all sorts of nasty legislation.
I’d agree with Carl, bars in New York are also much pleasant as a result. And Italy actually.
I actually thought Nick Barlow’s suggestion when these propsosals were first mooted was a good one — all bars and pubs should be non-smoking, but they can provide smoking areas (if they are properly ventilated). This is basically the policy in Italy.
> babies have more than cigarettes
Pros, that is.
Definetly pubs/bars/anywhere outside of owner occupied rsidential property should be non-smoking. The concession is some designated glass walled smoking boxes with industrial extractor fans and carbon filters installed.
Then again I am a bit of a cunt….
It should be realised that smoking is anti-social in public and like kiddie fiddling should only occur behind closed doors…..
"reckon the most seditious part of this legislation is the definition of pubs as public places. Any MP who supported the ban still should have opposed that wording"
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?
I’m really torn on this issue. My instinct is to agree with John B on principle, but, on a more selfish level, going out here in New York is so massively more pleasant (and lighter on a laundry bills) now that smoking is banned. Walking into a London pub on a visit recently almost made me heave..
I’m sort-of in agreement with 3A here: when I’m not drunk, the concept of being in a smoky room is minging and rancid (once drunk, the smoking demon is unleashed and I move from zero-a-day to 40-a-day). From a selfish PoV, I’d welcome smoking bans everywhere indoors except seedy dives.
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.
Yup, me too. From my personal point of view, this ban is brilliant, since stale cigarette smoke is a migraine trigger for me. Once it’s in place, I’m going to be more likely to go to pubs and I’m going to enjoy it more once I’m there. That’s hardly the point. The purpose of legislation is not pleasantness. There’s more to being a criminal than pissing me off.
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.
Yes I agree it’s unusual, though I suppose drinking is banned in pubs for 13 hours a day,pubs aren’t being singled out in the legislation (actually they are somewhat in that ones that don’t sell food can allow smoking), and there are some other examples..drinking alcohol is against the law on football terraces for example, despite being privately owned.
I quite like your idea about setting targets, but what would happen if no-one wanted to allow smoking?
Targets are a stupid idea, especially if backed up with tax incentives. Firstly, you need an army of people to monitor them, and secondly, the tax break would effectively force breweries to make all pubs non-smoking. It’s a ban by the back door. I’m with John B on this – it’s another authoritarian law attempting to mould us all into perfect people. What next? Taxes on food. Bans on alcohol. State mandated exercise, all in the name of saving the NHS a few quid. And just to get through the SBBS suitable comment filter: All so a few totalitarian fucknut cunting wankbastards can get off creating the perfect society.
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.
Andrew,
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.