[Closed] smoking outside pubs

My better half was never able to go to pubs much before the ban, due to her health.

How I long for the smoke filled, bawdy, obnoxious, pool table clad, wife deficient dingy places of old.

Where non-smoking students who asked for Mohitos were instead given a wry smile and a pint, or in the darker places of Wellingborough, a good drubbing out the back.

Don't you mean the facts are always beside the point ?

them too

Simon, a lot of pubs did close directly as a result of the smoking ban. Drive around and have a look. Mostly pubs which didn't sell hot food. So the smokers now go to pubs which do sell hot food and annoy the diners.

Easy to blame the smoking ban, but it seems not to be true - pubcos are simply changing the types of establishments they run:

[url= http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/markeaston/2009/07/pubs_arent_dying_they_are_evol.html ]Mark Easton - pubs aren't dying[/url]

them too

OK, let's see what we've got here ........ the topics and the facts are beside the point. Whether you are right or, wrong, doesn't concern you - apparently. So what we are saying, is that you enjoy arguing and talking complete bollox about things you know nothing about.

I glad we've sorted that out .............. I would never have guessed otherwise.

So the smokers now go to pubs which do sell hot food and annoy the diners.

prior to the ban there were very few smoke free pubs

So what we are saying, is that you enjoy arguing and talking complete bollox about things you know nothing about.

whether I know anything about the subject or not doesn't matter to me. I can soon invent an opinion. I'm glad we got that sorted out too :o)

Knowledge is too poor an alternative to argument

Smoking is fun!

From http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4709394.stm (some of this is amusing!)

[i]About 10 million people in the UK smoke cigarettes, according to anti-smoking charity Ash. It says a further two million - the vast majority of them men - smoke cigars, pipes or both.

By age group, it is 20- to 24-year-olds who are most likely to light up, with about a third considered smokers. As people get older they become less likely to smoke, with the rate falling to 14% for the over 60s.

Manual workers and their families are almost twice as likely to smoke as those with a managerial or professional background (31% compared with 17%). And people living together are twice as likely to smoke as those who are married (35% compared with 18%).

Across the country, the greatest proportion of smokers is found in the North East (30%).

Many smokers start early in the morning. About one third of people who get through more than 20 cigarettes a day light up within five minutes of waking.

Smoker lies on a bed of cigarette packets

Among this group, eight out of 10 people say they would struggle to go 24 hours without a cigarette. Among all smokers, more than half would find the task a challenge.

Nevertheless, [b]seven out of 10 smokers say they would like to quit. [/b]The proportion wanting to stop is highest among those who smoke 10 to 19 cigarettes a day. It is suggested many heavy smokers believe stopping would be too difficult.

The average male smoker is thought to get through 14 cigarettes a day, while women smoke 13. [/i]

So, smokers, why do you want to quit?

Smoking is fun!

I agree - I love smoking! I just don't do it.

I don't smoke, so I don't know why 70% of people who smoke claim they want to quit. But I reckon if you deployed all the resources of government and the full weight of middle class social pressure to sneering at people for eating carrots despite the fact that around a third of them regularly did it and appeared to enjoy it you'd soon find an increase in the number of people claiming they wanted to give up on carrots. 🙂

So you reckon the reason those 70% want to quit is due to the government?

Yeah, of course it is!

A bit late to the discussion here. I don't have a huge problem with smokers, I don't like it much but i'll get on with my life. However, we recently had the finance's mum and sister over to BC for a couple of weeks, her mum smokes and it rules her bloody life.

She got patches for the flight over and kept going on about how amazed she was that they worked... duh its what they are designed to do... but well done made it though a 9 hour flight and 4 hour delay without issue. She then feels she has to have one once she's back at our place (outside I might add), not because she wants one but because she feels she has to. No logic in it

Everywhere we went after that was focussed around being able to go for a fag, take them to the mall, where's the nearest exit, going on a trip she needs to know when she can smoke and when we do stop to look at something interesting her first thought is to have a fag, and imagine trying to tell her there is a smoking ban in parks because of all the dry weather and forest fires we have had 🙄

Granted a few of you might be somewhat considerate, but please be aware that nobody wants to smell your stinking fag smoke while having dinner outside in the summer whether they tell you or not!

Ex-smoker here so I claim the right to be holier than holy.

Most smokers are junkies, end of arguement. By junkie I don't mean someone who takes something for the pleasurable effect it imparts, I mean someone who [b]needs[/b] a substance to acheive their perceived normality.

Most smokers are junkies

wrong, CFH maintains he is merely exercising his inalienable freedom of choice!

[i]So you reckon the reason those 70% want to quit is due to the government?[/i]

When everyone thought it cleared out your airways and cigarette packs didn't say "SMOKING KILLS" on them I reckon the proportion of smokers who claimed they wanted to quit was probably lower, yes.

Intense social pressure (including threads like this) has created a situation in which a major national hobby (see the stats you've quoted) has been turned into something its proponents have to be ashamed of doing.

They know they "should" quit, so they say they want to. 🙂

I suspect CFH of not being a very committed smoker. 🙂

The problem with all of this is the lack of moderation. 20 fags a day is grim. It costs, it turns your teeth yellow, it's addictive, it gives you cancer and to achieve that rate of smoking you'll be doing it rather a lot in the pub, which will create a noxious cloud around you.

If you smoke now and then it doesn't cost much money, isn't seriously addictive, does you precious little real harm and produces a level of smoke that most normally tolerant people can live with, especially if you're smoking nice cigars.

As with drinking, where government's endless response to the problem of a few people drinking too much and mis-behaving is to bollock everyone for drinking anything at all, the response is arguably proportionnate, but only if the worst excesses of the behaviour were typical rather than aberrant. 🙂

has been turned into something its proponents have to be ashamed of doing. They know they "should" quit, so they say they want to

so are you saying it's not about addiction but pleasure ?

It's a serious question. I've only ever smoked for pleasure - I'm far too much of a control freak to allow myself to be addicted to anything (other than sex or biking - or sex [b]and [/b]biking *) but I miss all the rituals and sensations. Perhaps if I had some immanent fatal condition I might smoke **

[edit] * and arguing...
[edit 2] ** if I couldn't have sex. I assume I'm right in thinking they're mutually exclusive ?

YES i am a smoker! a junkie of nicotine/benzine whatever you call me.
We the smokers of the world know what its doing to us.
We Know what it does to you(the nonsmoker) and the planet.Yes the government are making things better for the nonsmoker. I agree with there no smoking in public places forum.Yes its smelly and dirty but i LIKE smoking.Not cause im think im cool or hard.... For me personally,nicotine is medicimal.(yes you can stick all your shity comments up if you like)It suppresses my appetite so i dont overeat which in turn stops my bowel exploding. All in all were all gonna die...How quick is up to you when you light up. As for polluting the atmosphere..I think Chernobyl disaster done a better job than all the smokers on the planet. Plus the government likes my cig money too.Will they ever ban cigs...NO WAY.

Nicotine is clearly addictive, but smoking is also pleasant, certainly in moderation.

I've not idea how it breaks down between pitiful addicts and cheerful [i]bon viveurs[/i], and working that out is not helped by the fact that it's a class thing, and I'm pretty sure I don't get the culture of the early 20s manual workers who (according to the above) are doing the lion's share of the smoking.

My own approach to this subject owes a lot to Tom Hodgkinson, the editor of The Idler and to the chapter dedicated to smoking in his wonderful How To Be Idle. Hodgkinson is interested in the sensory pleasures of smoking, but also in the time that one is forced to put aside for it as quiet, contemplative time, often when one is supposed to be working. He is therefore able to portray it as a slightly subversive act in which to take pleasure. Again, the chap probably smokes a couple of rollies a day and a cigar, pipe or hookah on special occasions, so I suspect is not a dire chemical addict. 🙂

Will they ever ban cigs...NO WAY.

I don't think anyone is suggesting that. I'm all in favour of legalising [b]all[/b] drugs. Until we fix the world so people can just be happy we might as well let them get a brief respite of intoxication.

I'm all in favour of legalising all drugs.

I'm not disagreeing with that but I can just imagine the 'smoking crack outside pubs' thread!

Christ, this thread is enough to make me want to start smoking again. As a kind of halfway house, next time I go to the pub I'm going to cadge a tab and just let it burn to see how many ****s I can annoy.

And I want to live in a world free of sanctimonious self-righteous gits