Smoking ban to be scrapped?

[max_tranmere]

Other people dont inhale their smoke now as smoking has been banned. I think smoking should be re-introduced in pubs and clubs and have a smoking area. Not like how the Cafe Rouge chain used to, with half smoking and half non-smoking. That was farcical. It just wafted over. Maybe have it 80% non-smoking and surcharge the smokers 20 pence on each drink or something so that the thousands pf pounds that would raise over a year for the place could pay for very good ventilation for that corner of the pub or club. I think that would work - none of the non smokers would be having it breath it in. I've never understood why people are so concerned about this but not about the passive effects on people from car polution in cities. That does people much more harm.

[Sam Slater]

Separate rooms for both smoking and non-smoking may be a compromise, as long as the price for renovation and decoration (cigerette burns on carpets & seating, plus what smoke does to the paintwork means a landlord has to spend more on redecoration) doesn't get passed on to the price of beer for the non-smokers.

Still think it wouldn't work very well when you go out as a group, with 3 smokers and 3 non-smokers. You'd be split up half the night.

[quote] I've never understood why people are so concerned about this but not about the passive effects on people from car polution in cities. That does people much more harm.[/quote]

I don't think a mode of transport can be used as an analogy for a completely useless bad habit. Having said that, I have brought up the worry of car fume inhalation more than once on here (as recently as the thread on petrol prices, I think).

[Bob Singleton]

The smoking ban has had an adverse effect on the strip industry.

I don't know if both customers of strip venues and the dancers are predisposed toward smoking but you only have to see how quiet many venues have become inside, but with a fair few dancers and customers puffing away outside to see the effects.

At my own weekly events we still allow smoking... I know it's illegal, but then what's the council official going to say... "Mr Smith, I'm going to have to fine you ?50.00 for smoking... oh and could you take your cock out of that girls mouth while you're at it!"???

The fact is that pretty much every customer smokes and pretty much every girl smokes, but we can hardly have semi-naked girls stood outside the venue lighting up!

Stag and hen nights have become a nightmare to run. Before the smoking ban, the comedian would do a 20 minute spot and then introduce the first stripper, then do another few minutes before introducing the next onel and so on. Then there'd be a short break before the routine was repeated for the second spots. Another short break at a stag show while the girls did their collection and then it was the final spot. Now the evening is constantly broken up as over half the audience go out for a cigarette, and what used to take maybe 2? hours now takes at least an hour longer.

I can understand all the health benefits of people not smoking, but we live in a democracy. The smoking ban should indeed have been organised on a local level allowing a small percentage of venues (pubs, clubs etc) to be smoking environments. Where I live there are 5 pubs within a minutes walking distance. At any one time the number of people standing outside smoking would easily fill up one pub. Why not allow one of those pubs to have smoking with the remaining four being smoke free?

[max_tranmere]

Totally agree Bob. One or two pubs in every five could be allowed to have smoking and then people could choose where they went. But that is too much like common sense.

[jimslip]

I think if the authorities tackled yobs, stabbers, hoodies and criminals with the same zeal as they have smokers, we would all live in a much safer environment.

The truth is that smokers have been victim to an almost facscistic persercution, by non-smoking fanatics.

It would have been quite simple for pubs with smoking areas, to be required to place air conditioners with a BTU output equivelant to the cubic area of the smoking area.

But no, the anti-smoking Gestapo, just wants to rid the world of us. I am in Budapest at the moment and have relished puffing smoke all over the place, along with everyone else, to our our hearts content, without some busy-body stopping us!

Pubs were never designed for non-smokers and that's why they are empty now.

I'm sure all you anti-smokers will be gathering with your pitch forks and flaming torches to have me and my fellow smoking brethren lynched, but ALL I SAY IS YA-BOO-SUCKS TO THE LOT OF YA, cos even as I write I've got 5 fags in me gob and you can't do anything about it! !laugh!

[Lizard]

Do they fell good to suck on sir? do they? do you like the way they 'puff' sir?, do you like to drag on them sir?.....ooooooh, sir,ooooooo suits you sir

!grin!

[colonel]

If you want to kill yourself, Jim, then that is your choice- but we'd all miss you!

[jimslip]

Smoking is good for you!! here's proof from my doctor:

[max_tranmere]

This morning (Friday) I read in the paper that a pub landlady in Devon has ignored the smoking ban and even went as a far as putting a note in the pub window saying 'smoking allowed here'. She has been fined. She said that hers "is a working class pub where a pint and a cigarette go hand in hand. We are not a lasagne and chips pub". I know exactly what she means and when I read that I further realised how stupid the ban really is.

What will the authorities do next? Ban the watching of football in pubs in inner city areas and only allow them to watch crochet on the TV instead? That I think is similar to this. Northern Working Men's Clubs have suffered hugely since the smoking ban, as virtually everyone who goes to them smokes. Pubs in very working class districts of the UK have (or rather HAD) a culture of a pint and a fag together.

Some prat in the Government thought that stopping this, and encouraging all boozers to become gastro-pubs instead - where you can order a steak sandwich or a lasagne and salad with your pint - would make no differnce to anything! How wrong they were! Bring on the crochet for all the pubs of Deptford, Hackney and Poplar! Wont make any differnce will it Mr Government Man!!

[colonel]

At least we know where to drink in Devon if we want to die early.