and yet pubs are closing left right and centre because people don’t go to them… weird no wonder society is in meltdown
Nick has suggested the problem pubs have faced in recent times. They struggle to compete with cheap beer and wine from supermarkets. Putting up their prices to cover their losses simply puts them out of business.
The fact that they go out of business is not proof they they don't have an important role to play. The social role they play is separate to whether they are economically viable or not. This also true of other enterprises such as village shops.
The idea that the market always satisfies human needs is false.
Where are you drinking, fella?
A dive called the Beer House on Manchester road, beer's cheaper at least, but it's a bar not a pub. It's not the same.
Just stop the sale of cigarettes all together is health is the concern. Then people would still go to pubs and any other BS excuse tied to smoking as they can't smoke anywhere.
One things for certain…. Imposing a ban on smoking in beer gardens will be another nail in the coffin of the local boozer
But some people who never go to the pub anyway, but think they have the right to tell everyone what’s best for them, will be able to feel smugly satisfied that they’ve saved some people from themselves, so that’s what really matters here.
We have a pub in the village, it has a beer garden, it has some regulars who smoke. I catch a bit of smoke on the breeze from time to time. Par for the course (and actually most of them are middle class because this is a middle class village in Northants, funny that).
We also have (in the village) at least two houses that routinely burn coal through autumn/winter/spring. We have two other houses (one owned by a builder) who routinely burn anything they can get their hands on - wet wood, tanalised timber, old plywood etc. and then there's the usual cohort of wood burners and open fires (I have one of each). Furthermore, there is no gas in the village, so most are on oil. Some of these oil boilers are 30 years old (mine is, it's also in a listed building in a conservation area, hence why it's still here) and belch out foul smelling fumes all winter. Then there are the farmers (routine pesticide spraying aside) - one has a fire skip which he uses to burn assorted farm rubbish on a regular basis, the other prefers to pile his rubbish in the field outside his farm for an occasional bonfire. And of course there's the garden bonfires in autumn/winter - all that lovely damp, green, leafy material, just freshly cut, or else from a wet pile that's been festering at the bottom of the garden for a few weeks. Then we get onto the diesels - one chap collects old land rovers, another is a bit of an off-road enthusiast, and there's a younger lad with a 'no smoke, no poke' type BMW. That's in addition to the plain vanilla pre Euro 5 stuff that you can smell 100 meters down the road.
That's just what I have observed in the environs and from public places. I'm sure there's plenty more besides. And to think Labour (and some of you) are worried about a bit of passive smoke in the pub garden. *insert rolling on the floor laughing emoji* Absolutely top notch way to lose the support of the marginals that just won you the election.
Pubs seem to be held up as beacons of civil pride and are blessed with magical properties that hold society together….I think it’s bollocks
Well, you're wrong.
Culture’s changing as well though. When I started working, it was perfectly normal to go down the pub at lunch time with your co-workers, in fact the weirdos were the ones that ate al-desco. Most Friday afternoons in my 20’s was spent slightly buzzed, and I suspect that was probably true of most of business estates up and down the country, that’s all complete changed now, the Gen-Z workers don’t really believe us oldies when we tell them that.
It’s bonkers now to think of the office culture back in the 90’s innit? When I started working in Manchester at a certain well known newspaper, the entire office decamped to the pub (The Nags Head) every lunchtime. I worked with an art director who would put a bottle of red away every single lunchtime and another who would sink 5 pints of Guinness in his lunch hour, every single day. Madness!
Does anyone actually believe that passive smoking is a real risk when outside?
You would get more exposure to toxins in a railway station, a road tunnel, filling your car with petrol and hundreds of other situations.
I stopped smoking 30 years ago so it has no affect on me but I don't think banning smoking in beer gardens makes any sense.
Surely the smokers will just stand at the gate? Or not bother to go to the pub at all?
I say go the other way and bring back indoor smoking - a Dredd style smokatorium though, not just a free for all
https://judgedredd.fandom.com/wiki/Smokatorium
nanny state, when soon even good honest people will get fed up and ignore the rules.
Of course its a real risk. A small one but its real.
Yes all those things expose you to toxins as well.
I just find it hard to get worked up about this either way7 - its a non event same as the smoking ban indoors
A small one? I would call it insignificant.
Decorating your house is probably a lot worse.
Where does it stop?
I really don't see the point, it won't stop people smoking, just make less people go to pubs.
But some people who never go to the pub anyway, but think they have the right to tell everyone what’s best for them, will be able to feel smugly satisfied that they’ve saved some people from themselves, so that’s what really matters here.
Bless you really don't cope well when people's opinions differ from yours do you. You sound like an angry sixth former.
Well, you’re wrong
That's me convinced
But some people who never go to the pub anyway, but think they have the right to tell everyone what’s best for them, will be able to feel smugly satisfied that they’ve saved some people from themselves, so that’s what really matters here.
People are being told (and legally enforced) to do what's best for them with many drugs. Heroin for example is illegal, prescription drugs are (rather obviously) only available via prescription.
What can't I just shoot up sat in the pub garden and then go and buy a whole load of antibiotics on the way home - bloody nanny state.
I think swimming at my local beach when United Utilities pump a load of raw sewage into the sea is worse for my health than someone smoking a fag in the beer garden. I'd prefer to see them do something about that.
Yeah.., Premier League Footballers are always complaining about not being able to get the latest Ferrari because the graphic designers have already bought them all
Where’s the eye roll emoji gone?
Ah, so because you don't own a Ferrari, you're the authentic voice of the working class. Right oh.
Anyway, is there any evidence on the effect of passive smoking outside? I'm guessing it's very small. It also seems weird to me that the government would consider spending time and political capital on this issue.
One things for certain…. Imposing a ban on smoking in beer gardens will be another nail in the coffin of the local boozer
except this guy - who actually runs a small pub group locally - says it won't be. (amusingly using that exact metaphor)
He says pubs close because they're shit - which is spot on in my experience.
Yeah.., Premier League Footballers are always complaining about not being able to get the latest Ferrari because the graphic designers have already bought them all
I think the implication is, despite all the class-war bollocks, you are clearly very solidly middle class 😉
Anyway, is there any evidence on the effect of passive smoking outside?
No idea but as an ex smokers I certainly avoided pubs for a quite a while and the temptation to smoke was too much. This was less if inside post the ban, I reckon banning smoking in beer gardens would when taken at a national level tip a significant number into being ex smokers rather than"social" smokers.
In practise though I have no idea how it will work as the smokers will just stand just outside the beer garden and chuck buts on the floor....
Anyway, is there any evidence on the effect of passive smoking outside?
I don't think this latest wheeze (see what I did there?) is necessarily about the dangers of passive smoking, it's about the continuing efforts to just stop it all together. The plan to make it illegal for folks born after 2009 continues, this is just another aspect of the same thing, restrict more and more the places where its OK to smoke, until eventually 'legacy' smokers are restricted to tabbing away in their homes at £30-£40 for a pack of twenty - or whatever it'll cost eventually.
until eventually ‘legacy’ smokers are restricted to tabbing away in their homes at £30-£40 for a pack of twenty – or whatever it’ll cost eventually.
And if limited to only consuming in your own home they are alternatives which are much more fun.
I see this as the thin end of the wedge. The government are "protecting us" from harming ourselves. what next? Bacon sandwiches?
I dont smoke and the only issue i have with smoking is 90% of the people i see that are smoking are jumped up arses. But if you want to do it who am i to stop you. Same as if i want to ride my bike down a steep hill and rick breaking a bone who are you to stop me?
Pubs are (were) Inter-generational. Sneaking into a pub as an underage kid was a right of passage.
It meant that you learnt from your elders and had to mind your behaviour if you wanted to be accepted. It bought you incrementally into the adult world.
Stricter implementation or age restrictions, I.D. requirements and stricter implementation of the law haven't helped either. Just means the kids get someone to go to Lidl and go crazy in an adult free environment.
Smoking on pavements ouside pubs is a bugbear, and should be banned. Not just for the passive smoking, but because you end up with drunk adults, often not behaving themselves properly, ona narrow walkway.
I think designated smoking outside is the best thay can hope for, but would be difficult to police, and I expect publicans would only designate it to tick a box, as opposed to actually enforce it.
who are you to stop me?
No one's going to stop you from doing that.
Yeah, that’s what we hear all the time.
It's true. My local pub has a thriving social scene and loads of regulars who all know each other. I can walk in there any time on any day of the week and there'll be someone I know who I can have a chat with. It provides an amazing networking function for the community where I can find advice on almost any subject (a bit like STW) and find people with skills who can help me with any issue who I know won't scam me or screw me over because otherwise their local reputation would be in the mud. And on top of all that it's a bloody good night out.
Or would you prefer everyone sit in their homes staring at the telly or chatting to strangers on the internet (the irony eh!) who they will never meet real life? It's an old cliche, but maybe you need to get out more?
Surely the smokers will just stand at the gate? Or not bother to go to the pub at all?
And quite possibly sit in their living room smoking while their kids are present
Stricter implementation or age restrictions, I.D. requirements and stricter implementation of the law haven’t helped either. Just means the kids get someone to go to Lidl and go crazy in an adult free environment.
You're going to deny that in your day kids didn't get drunk at houseparties and make out awkwardly on the sofa and instead went to drink Boddingtons bitter in the Dog And Partridge ?
My teenage years were more Inbetweeners than Skins but even I had more fun than trying to be accepted into old man village pubs ?
It’s true. My local pub has a thriving social scene and loads of regulars who all know each other. I can walk in there any time on any day of the week and there’ll be someone I know
So for those that visit pubs regularly pubs have people in them that they know, but pubs are going bust left right and centre because not enough people use them. Your anecdote about your local is not evidence pubs provide anything other than beer and a place to drink it
I see this as the thin end of the wedge. The government are “protecting us” from harming ourselves
And again, they already do this. For example you can't legally use heroin, you can't legally drive without a seat belt and so on. The only difference here is the the drug has been widely available for a long time -if it were new and the effects of its long term use were known it would have been made illegal pretty quickly.
So what business is it of yours, or the governments, in not letting all concerned get on with it?
and
@convert – apologies for my comments being more than a touch insensitive, given your own personal experience
Fair do's, ta.
However, If you read, I wasn't in favour of a ban. I've got an opinion about a lot of things - as have you. It's ok to have an opinion without it being my business. The art is deciding what to do with the opinion and when to vocalise or act upon it.
Or would you prefer everyone sit in their homes staring at the telly or chatting to strangers on the internet
I don't particularly give two shits either way I just think moral outrage about pubs closing due to there supposed social good is bollocks, it's always some country pub not Whetherspoons selling cheap larger at 9 am
you can’t legally drive without a seat belt
You know, if the seat belt was a new thing that the govt demanded we all use, You could lay money on so oaf declaring it was his right to be thrown through the windscreen onto the road after crashing, it's nothing more than thin end of the wedge nanny state wokery
And there I was thinking threads like this would bring out all the preachy, judgemental, sanctimonious, holier-than-thou, self-righteous bedwetters and their tiresome hectoring for the world to live up to their joyless, humourless standards
Hate to break this to you Binbins, but there's precisely one hectoring bedwetter on this thread.
Those on low:income or benefits seem to spend the most on cigarettes, for reasons I don’t understand.
I suppose if your life is miserable, you'll take little luxuries wherever you can.
We also have (in the village) at least two houses that routinely burn coal through autumn/winter/spring. We have two other houses (one owned by a builder) who routinely burn anything they can get their hands on – wet wood, tanalised timber, old plywood etc. and then there’s the usual cohort of wood burners and open fires (I have one of each). Furthermore, there is no gas in the village, so most are on oil. Some of these oil boilers are 30 years old (mine is, it’s also in a listed building in a conservation area, hence why it’s still here) and belch out foul smelling fumes all winter. Then there are the farmers (routine pesticide spraying aside) – one has a fire skip which he uses to burn assorted farm rubbish on a regular basis, the other prefers to pile his rubbish in the field outside his farm for an occasional bonfire. And of course there’s the garden bonfires in autumn/winter – all that lovely damp, green, leafy material, just freshly cut, or else from a wet pile that’s been festering at the bottom of the garden for a few weeks. Then we get onto the diesels – one chap collects old land rovers, another is a bit of an off-road enthusiast, and there’s a younger lad with a ‘no smoke, no poke’ type BMW. That’s in addition to the plain vanilla pre Euro 5 stuff that you can smell 100 meters down the road.
Out of all of those, how many can you still smell on your clothes the next morning?
Regardless of health concerns, I think this is something many smokers are oblivious to. It is such a pervasive smell, it clings like little else. You can walk past a smoker in a supermarket and their background aroma catches your throat. Whereas I'm reasonably confident that I could spend an evening in the company a vaper and not have to boil my clothes the next morning because they stank of dewberry.
It’s bonkers now to think of the office culture back in the 90’s innit?
It is weird how quickly we normalise things. I worked at a company in the 00s where they had a smoking office. There were three or four guys in there who smoked, in the office. That just seems mad today, can you imagine walking through work today and just lighting up a fag casual as you like?
I was the IT bod at the time so did site visits to that office, it was grim. Everything was beige and literally sticky. Walls, keyboards, computers, mice were the worst. I'd uplift faulty base units and it'd stink the car out, how much do you have to smoke to make metal smell?
Your anecdote about your local is not evidence pubs provide anything other than beer and a place to drink it
If people just stared at the wall in silence and solitude necking lager. You've mentioned a couple of times on this thread that you use or have used pubs. Is that what you do or did? Or did you get anything more than that out of it? If not, why do/did you use them? If you read again, people have provided plenty of evidence of pubs providing a whole lot more than that.
I was a Merchant Navy Deck Officer in the 90's.
Nearly everyone smoked.
We smoked on the bridge. There was even these strange, pull down, sand filled ash trays fitted in the front bulkhead.
I would easily get through 10 - 12 cigs in a 4 hour watch.
Then we would go for a drink in a smoked filled bar.
I would get through between 30 and 40 per day.
We all must of stunk.
I actually managed to quit on my last trip on there, took a lot of willpower and some nicoret gum.
I actually own a pub with the other half. She runs it, while I run another company - but I'm still heavily involved. I also happen to be a smoker who's quit multiple times for 5 or 6 years at a time.
We've both got mixed feelings on it. Even as a smoker I'm not against where you can smoke being more restrictive. I believe I'm a considerate smoker, but understand that what I think is considerate may not be viewed as such by a non-smoker. I'm also not against some additional forms of restriction on smoking on licensed premises, and indeed some of the pubs in our area have made parts of their beer gardens non-smoking anyway.
If it did even happen, and it was a blanket ban, I don't think a substantial amount of establishments would see a large negative impact. But there are those that will, and it's not hard to put a pin on it being wet driven pubs that will find it tough. We're approx 60/40 food/wet, and do have what I think is a relatively high percentage of smokers amongst our regulars. They're mostly afterworkers having a few after doing mostly physical jobs - we're rural, so there's heaps of fencers, tree surgeons, farmers, groundworkers, etc. It's those people we'd alienate with a blanket ban, and it's those people who keep us ticking over in the crappy months of Feb and March. There's also a large amount of business networking going on between those guys too, so would they lose out on those opportunities if they decided to not come to us because having a smoke would be more difficult? Dunno, but I suspect so.
If they are to implement more restrictions, there needs to be some kind of graduated approach - i.e. if you're over 80% (say) food led, then maybe it is an outright ban, but if you're wet led and you have the space to do it, then smoking is permitted in some outside zones, probably making sure it's X metres from a doorway, etc, etc. It's maybe a first step on a path to a complete ban, maybe it's not - but a cold turkey approach will not be great in my opinion. But they've only said they're looking at it, so it might not even happen at all!
Oh BTW - we're £3.90 a pint for all ales (nothing from more than 30 miles away) and standard lagers and ciders, just for anybody that assumes that everyone is on 6 or 7 quid a pint. We make it work for reasonable money, and I'm sure there's lots of other oubs that do too - but if you don't visit them, you'll never know ;o)
Your anecdote about your local is not evidence pubs provide anything other than beer and a place to drink it
Local pubs do far more than just sell beer. I could name all the other stuff my local does but there's not much point. It must be lonely up there in your ivory tower.
Where's your pub @cx_monkey? Sounds great! Any chance of an STW lock in? 😉
Some handy pointers for a lot of the contributors to this thread
What to do if you see a smoker in a beer garden: An emergency guide
we're in the Teign Valley about 6 or 7 miles west of Exeter, just inside the Dartmoor National Park. Just down the hill from Haldon and the other trails around there ;o)
That’s me convinced
I knew you were smarter than you make it out to be - WELL DONE!
Oh BTW – we’re £3.90 a pint for all ales (nothing from more than 30 miles away
Where is this pub? I shall come and visit 🙂
Nice post
I was a Merchant Navy Deck Officer in the 90’s.
Nearly everyone smoked.
We smoked on the bridge. There was even these strange, pull down, sand filled ash trays fitted in the front bulkhead.
When I first started in nursing it was usual to smoke on the wards - both patients and staff. Ashtrays on beside lockers, Ashtrays in the kitchen or a storeroom for the staff. Seems incredible now.
