Smoking ban and Smokers

You know that the idea of a pub – a public house – is that it contains ALL members of the public, not vetted members of the middle class, uncontaminated by frightful working class habits?

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

How wrong was i, eh?

A night in a drinking establishment (chin-stroking lcraft ales obviously) containing the ban-enthusiasts on this thread sounds like a right old laugh. It’d probably stay in business for about a week

I do find it quite staggering when you accuse others of being self righteous! Wasn’t it you that fell out with the Brexity folk in your local? We’re they the wrong type of ALL members of the public?

Edit: Ha I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that you were agreeing with @binners not me!

What @binners said ^^

Tom-B ;-)

My local here is another old school boozer where the landlord doesn’t give a flying **** if you vape indoors because he knows his market.

Binners I’ve never agreed with you as much as on this issue!

Funnily enough in my local last Friday (you know which one) all the rules went out the window and we spent all night smoking weed inside. For one night we could do what the f*** we wanted without any sanctimonious arseholes telling us what to do or whining about the smell. Best night I’ve had in ages!

I do find it quite staggering when you accuse others of being self righteous! Wasn’t it you that fell out with the Brexity folk in your local? We’re they the wrong type of ALL members of the public?

Staggering? Why? There’s a world of difference between having to listen to a bunch of knuckle-dragging arseholes being homophobic and racist and someone having a fag outside. I just decided to go and drink somewhere else. No bigee. I’m a consumer and made a choice. I now drink in a pub with less dickheads. Simple.

If anyone is that arsed about people smoking in beer gardens then go to one that doesn’t allow it. Good luck in finding one. I’m going to go out on a limb here and guess that no pub is crying out for your (very occasional) custom

You could say the same about diesel cars… at least in a pub/resterant you can sit inside… everyone gets poisoned by car/bus/lorries/trains just by opening the front door.

Swap diesel for any motorised vehicle…. As if petrol engines were only emitting the scent of roses.

I’m going to go out on a limb here and guess that no pub is crying out for your (very occasional) custom

Mine? It’d often be easier if we just had our wages paid directly to the local pubs that we go to! As I said earlier in the thread, I’m not arsed either way about the ban. It’s just another one of those threads where you’re ranting at folk as the self appointed thread police.

As for this:

Funnily enough in my local last Friday (you know which one) all the rules went out the window and we spent all night smoking weed inside. For one night we could do what the f*** we wanted without any sanctimonious arseholes telling us what to do or whining about the smell. Best night I’ve had in ages!

Yeah smoking drugs in doors is the peak of awesomeness in 2024. Proper edgy.

I don’t like the smell of fags.

I grew up in a house with a dad who smoked in the house. A lot. And my grandparents smoked like chimneys too. My grandad had the capacity to fill a room with smoke like no other smoker I know – don’t know how he did it. Got to confess I didn’t really notice it too much – it’s just what the air indoors smelt like. And in the late 80s and 90’s a lot of friends smoked and going out involved lots of smoke. Again, I didn’t really notice it until the next morning when it didn’t smell great on your clothes. But it was just part of life.

But now……My dad died pretty young (early 60’s – of lung cancer) and  everyone I knew way back gave up and every one I’ve met since doesn’t smoke. For me it’s really unusual to be around smokers and it now really jars.

I’d not choose to be around someone smoking if I had a choice. Within 15ft outdoors is plenty close enough that I find it unpleasant. Unpleasant enough it’d spoil the drink/food I’d bought. I can’t help it – it’s just how it is. I’m also pretty tight for disposable income these days so spending it on something that I’m not going to enjoy is not something I can justify.

So people smoking in a pub garden on the sort of day where I’d want to be in the garden puts me off spending my pound there. However……Binners above has a point – I’m no lush. I don’t palm over half my wages to the local landlord. If any pub was relying on me to keep them afloat it’d be a pretty desperate situation.

So all up, despite knowing it puts me off personally, and despite my personal feelings about smoking (losing my dad pretty young and what that’s done to my mum) I think I’d let this one ride. There’s something slightly ironic about a dying pub industry being propped up by people killing themselves but there is it. People are weird. Give it another 20 years and it’ll be a none problem.

Funnily enough in my local last Friday (you know which one) all the rules went out the window and we spent all night smoking weed inside. For one night we could do what the f*** we wanted without any sanctimonious arseholes telling us what to do or whining about the smell. Best night I’ve had in ages

I know exactly where you mean, Mate, we had a lock in not long back and as soon as they shut the doors they put the ash trays on every table. I don’t even smoke any more, havent for ten years, but if you want to.., fill your boots. I couldn’t give a ****.

Most pubs in this country don’t survive on the middle class couple calling in twice a year to have half a pint of scruttocks old organic nob rot and a small savignon blanc, they stay in business through Baz the plasterer who calls in every night after work and has 5 pints of Stella and happens to smoke 20 B&H a day.

Something Keir Starmer might do well to remember

Sometimes this place is so detached from reality, it defies belief. Maybe touch base with the real world from time to time

There’s something slightly ironic about a dying pub industry being propped up by people killing themselves but there is it.

You know what? I don’t think it is.

You know that the idea of a pub – a public house – is that it contains ALL members of the public, not vetted members of the middle class, uncontaminated by frightful working class habits?

So middle class = non-smoker, working class = smoker?

Never really sure why pubs closing is seen as such a bad thing, they only produce pissed idiots anyway.

So so wrong…..

There’s something slightly ironic about a dying pub industry being propped up by people killing themselves but there is it

So what business is it of yours, or the governments, in not letting all concerned get on with it?

I’m normally unconcerned about middle class virtue signalling except when it comes to legislation that applies to us all and has serious implications for the real world.

And who’s going to enforce this shit? Like the average boozer landlord is going to have a stern word with anyone having a fag outside their pub

Middle class, health-Nazi, virtue signalling bollocks

Source?

the number of pubs that have closed, perhaps?

@convert – apologies for my comments being more than a touch insensitive, given your own personal experience

“So middle class = non-smoker, working class = smoker?”

Basically yes, it’s why you can buy a bottle of wine for the same price as it was 25 years ago but fags have gone up tenfold.

A massive tax on predominantly the working classes.

“Yeah smoking drugs in doors is the peak of awesomeness in 2024. Proper edgy.”

Edgy or not, he had the best night he had in ages and I for one am happy for him. Whatever happened to having a bit of fun?

The irony of people drinking themselves to death in public houses seems to be lost on some people. A pub isn’t a health spa, (although the social health benefits of pubs should not be ignored) it’s more likely that it’ll be the alcohol that kills you than a bit of passive smoking in the pub garden.

Swap diesel for any motorised vehicle…. As if petrol engines were only emitting the scent of roses.

That’s not what I meant and you know it.

Personally, I’m agnostic about smoking in open spaces, but even as a smoker trying to quit..I find the smell from things like pipes and cigars horrible, and people who vape and put out huge clouds of cherry flavour crap, even worse..

I mean, if you are vaping to quit tobacco, great, but you don’t need to be huffing and puffing cumulonimbus clouds to do that.

My local has a smoking area in the garden, which is kind of away from the main outdoor seating area, and that’s fine by me.

If only people got as upset about the forthcoming austerity implications than their ability to want to smoke a fag in a location where cheap supermarket booze had already killed its ability to thrive.

The middle classes are currently keeping the pub/hospitality industry going by the way. Because they’re the ones with the money to spend!

Still it’s good to see Starmer with all his priorities right.

The market on all this stuff has shifted – things don’t stay the same with or without government interference.

(I can remember when you could smoke in the cinema – I mean what a terrible experience that was.)

Have you bothered to read the reasoning?

Still much much bigger issues.

And let’s please not go down the path of burden of money on the tax payer for the NHS. Cos that’s drivel.

There are a million and one better things that could achieve a healthy environment that Labour could be doing.

Front the guardian:

However, health experts backed the idea, while polling showed it had majority support among every demographic and voting group apart from Reform UK supporters.

;)

Isn’t this being driven by NHS costs now being higher than the money taken from tobacco revenue. % of smokers has reduced from 50% to 13% so in the past that 50% were more than paying for the NHS costs of them killing themselves whereas now the 13% are not covering it and there is a 6BN ‘black hole” each year as the 50% who did smoke are still dying and costing lots of money. Left long enough it would balance out as the 13% would cover the NHS costs again due to less smokers left to die.

But if smoking is bad for people (it is) and it costs more money to deal with health issues than it takes (it does) then just simply make cigarettes illegal. Yes, vaping would obviously fit the gap but at the moment vaping is not expected to be as bad as smoking although it is pretty obvious that breathing something into your lungs on a very regular basis is not going to go without consequence.

It does appear that middle class smokers are few and far between. Those on low:income or benefits seem to spend the most on cigarettes, for reasons I don’t understand.

Ban smoking and the hospitality industry will have to adapt. Consider those who work in beer gardens, do they want to breathe in second hand smoke ?

The issue isn’t solely around pubs either. Are bus companies and train operators going out of business if you can’t have a cigarette while waiting for a train or bus?

Most Costa coffee shops have ash trays on outside tables. Will they go bust?

Play parks, should the kids need to inhale others second hand smoke whilst on the swings ?

Sometimes this place is so detached from reality, it defies belief. Maybe touch base with the real world from time to time

I find myself thinking this on a variety of topics.

I sometimes wonder if this forum is made up of a collection of bots living in a coffee shop in Hebden Bridge

Basically yes, it’s why you can buy a bottle of wine for the same price as it was 25 years ago but fags have gone up tenfold.

The single biggest chunk of cash on your £5.50 bottle of wine is tax, you’re actually only buying 21p worth of wine for £5.50, 91p in VAT and £2.33 in Duty. And its definitely not the same price it was 25 year ago.

Source: completely not double checked Google result, pricing from 2023.

FWIW, im not bothered by people smoking in Pub gardens and I agree with “some” of the commentary about the negative impact on social networks, I know of enough locals where its a lifeline to some, the examples im thinking of are usually older and living alone. Although Binners appears to have over-egged the reverse snobbery.

Of the things others do that impact me in order:

1/ ICE cars (EV owner)

2/ stagnant water mosquito breeding grounds; water butts, ponds, flower posts, badly maintained gutters… .

3/ Wood burning ( I own and use a stove and will stop when electricity is zero fossil fuels)

4/ cleaning products, perfumes and the chemicals used in shops, banks administrations etc.

5/ dogs: shit, noise and dangerous off lead.

6/Cats, shitting pissing stinking things.

Smoking and vaping just don’t register despite living in a place with a lot of smokers. They’re generally very considerate.

Whatever happened to having a bit of fun?

indeed. If the **** who are offended by a tiny bit of fag smoke are so bothered they can always stay at home and leave the rest of us to have a good night out. The pub landlords won’t give a shit, as binners sad it’s not them who keep the pubs going, it’s people like me who are in there every night after work and at the weekend.

I was asked/told to stop vaping outside a local pub/restaurant a couple of years ago, it’s the owners policy that it is not allowed anywhere on the premises including the car park (which i didn’t know at the time). I didn’t try to argue the point that I was outside with no one anywhere near me as it’s a privately owned business that is free to decide if they allow it or not, just like anywhere else already is. It’s also the only establishment in my area that know of that does this and it usually looks pretty busy when I pass. I can only assume the other bars in the area don’t see the need to follow suit as their regular customers aren’t in favour of such restrictions

COVID has been responsible for shutting down more pubs than the smoking ban.
Plus the rise in minimum wage and employer NI contribution going up.
The pub co that owns many pubs charge so much for rent and force the tenants to buy beer at exorbitant prices the business becomes unviable
Very cheap beer from Aldi and Lidl, less people who drink less , the cost of living crisis and the fact going to the pub or turning on the heating is an issue for many people is why so many pubs have shut in the last few years

You lot don’t hang around with many young people do you? Smoking is definitely on the up with Gen Z middle class people. They’re the people I see smoking most these days (despite having until recently worked in the construction industry).

Ex smoker. Hate smoking. Hate the acrid foul stench. Feel sorry for the all the girls I snogged when I used to smoke. Gave up smoking when the indoor ban came in.

But I really don’t have too much of an issue about smoking in pub gardens. I think an outright ban is a step too far.

Most smokers I know realise it stinks & do make efforts to minimise the effect.

The usual depressing descent into the country’s curse – class. It’s 2024 and it seems worse than ever.

What keeps folk on lower incomes out is price, and not just lower incomes.  Pubs are almost a thing of the past now for me.   Filthy air ban never affected me directly, just made pubs attractive as I never got into that rubbish third rate drug.

While smoke  is disgusting, the beer garden thing appears to be distraction as with the outside ventilation it is not an assault on the health of workers which was the reason for cleaning the air inside.   A distraction from the far more pressing need to improve interior air quality due to a fair chunk of the population being laid up with respiratory viruses.

This whole thing stinks – not of fag smoke, but of the sort of divisive culture war nonsense that should have stopped on July 5th. Cummings would be proud.

Never really sure why pubs closing is seen as such a bad thing, they only produce pissed idiots anyway.

So so wrong…..

Why? Excess drinking causes all sorts of social and health problems, it’s not like a local library closing or something. No idea why the local pub is put on a pedestal whereas a coffee shop isn’t……

Pubs provide a social environment where local people connect and friendships are formed.

An established pub closing down is always tragic imo.

Pubs provide a social environment where local people connect and friendships are formed.

Yeah, that’s what we hear all the time.

So why did you ask the question?

I am a teetotaler btw.

Edit: And I don’t smoke either. The only way seeing other people smoking might bother me is that it reminds me how much I would enjoy having a fag.

On costs. It isn’t just about NHS costs. The country saves on pension and benefits costs when smokers die young. Taxpayer costs are not an argument to ban smoking.

https://snowdon.substack.com/p/how-much-does-smoking-cost-britain?utm_source=post-banner&utm_medium=web&utm_campaign=posts-open-in-app&triedRedirect=true

As for the pub garden ban. Nanny state nonsense. Let market forces sort it. If a landlord finds smokers are driving his customers away he will ban smoking. Don’t see it often funnily enough

Why? Excess drinking causes all sorts of social and health problems, it’s not like a local library closing or something. No idea why the local pub is put on a pedestal whereas a coffee shop isn’t……

Some rural communities would disagree very strongly with that & would argue vociferously to mind your own business. I know of more than a few places where the pub provides a hub for people to come together. Where the local community has come together to stop/but a pub closing because of the gaping hole it would leave if it did shut. Stop looking at things through your own very narrow perspective.

Why? Excess drinking causes all sorts of social and health problems, it’s not like a local library closing or something. No idea why the local pub is put on a pedestal whereas a coffee shop isn’t……

You know most pub goers don’t drink to excess?

A pub we used to frequent before we moved was the absolute heart of the community. Loads of different social groups met there in the day time for coffee mornings, there was a sewing morning where people could bring clothes to be repaired for free. A local teenage entrepreneur had his own mini baking business and would sell freshly baked bread in there. Likewise other small businesses. Live music, darts leagues etc. etc. It was always full of families, dogs, quirky characters and laughter. I really miss it as there is nothing quite like that where we live now.

I’ve been to a village pub in Exmoor where the pub had taken on the role of post office, village hall and fish and chip shop. The whole village relied on it.  Others which were also the village store.

I’m a self confessed coffee snob but cafes just don’t have the sense of community that a proper local pub has. I feel sorry for those that have never experienced that.

Maybe touch base with the real world from time to time

I’m sure we all appreciate this lesson from a well-remunerated crayon botherer.