Smoking ban and Smokers

The original smoking ban did have a catastrophic effect on pubs.

Catastrophic? Nah. A bigger impact was the fact that they think they can charge £7 a pint now vs people having the choice to walk into a supermarket and having the biggest choice of beer you can have for far less. Pubs can’t just sell Fosters/Carling/Smiths by the pint and some peanuts anymore and expect to survive…

So why did you ask the question?

Because we hear it a lot doesn’t make it true

Stop looking at things through your own very narrow perspective.

I am not I am looking at it through the perspective of government policy. 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

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.

So why wasn’t the local shop supported in the same way?

I’m a self confessed coffee snob but cafes just don’t have the sense of community that a proper local pub has

Why do you think that is? I see loads of cafes that have old ladies spending an hour drinking a cup of tea and chatting. My old mum would never go to a pub to see her mostly female widowed friends but regularly visits cafes with her friends.

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

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?

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

Pubs, have been social hubs which have connected people for centuries. You might not appreciate the role that they have and do play but it doesn’t mean that the claim is bollocks.

Too much caffeine can make you angry btw. You sound angry.

I don’t go to the pub as often as I used to ’cause mainly I just can’t afford to. Pint’s what? north of 7-8 quid now? Something like that round my way. I certainly couldn’t afford a pub and cigarette habit like I used to.  I think pub’s are dying off mainly as drink from the supermarket’s cheaper.

My friend has a cafe which we stopped at on Saturday. It is absolutely part of the community, my friend was chatting away almost constantly to people she has obviously gotten to know very well over the years.

Pubs, have been social hubs which have connected people for centuries. You might not appreciate the role that they have and do play but it doesn’t mean that the claim is bollocks.

and yet pubs are closing left right and centre because people don’t go to them… weird no wonder society is in meltdown

I suspect some of the sentiments about pubs on here come from the kind of people who think dancing is sinful and laughter on a Sunday is blasphemous.

I used to smoke like a chimney. Quit about twenty years ago and one of the best choices I’ve made in life. I am completely ambivalent about the beer garden bit as I spend very little time in pubs these days. An outright ban seems a bit extreme. It would be easier to just ban the sale of tobacco than police an outright ban. Nothing against people who smoke. I know how hard it is to quit the bloody things and I intend to buy a pipe when I’m old.

Bloke up the road – thats adapt and survive – like my local pubs.  those that do do well

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.

I used to smoke like a chimney. Quite about twenty years ago and one of the best choices I’ve made in life. I am completely ambivalent about the beer garden bit as I spend very little time in pubs these days.

Same here, I actually find the ash trays worse than the actual smoke. I have to move the ash trays away as they really spoil my pint.

There was 9 pubs in the village I live in before the smoking ban was introduced, there are 2 left.

Seven out of nine of them also closed contemporaneously with a longer term decline in the number of pubs, the biggest financial crash since the 1930’s, a decade and a half of public sector pay cuts, a global pandemic and an inflationary crisis sparked by a war in Europe.

But yea, it’s smokers inability to go the the length of a pint without sparking up that’s at fault.

So why wasn’t the local shop supported in the same way?

I’m sure it was supported but like the post office, even though it provided an essential community service it wasn’t a viable business on it’s own. Combining 2 or 3 of those functions allows them to cling on to an income by their finger nails.

I’ve noticed recently more and more community owned pubs. Where people value the socially cohesive nature of them sufficiently to part with a lot of wedge to keep them alive. Expecting a quality of life, rather than financial return.

I don’t go to the pub as often as I used to ’cause mainly I just can’t afford to. Pint’s what? north of 7-8 quid now?

Where are you drinking, fella? All the pubs round here now have old style ‘happy hour’ offers so if you go for a couple of beers after work (which we do quite regularly) it’s half that for a pint.

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)

https://www.kentonline.co.uk/thanet/news/pub-boss-smoking-ban-will-not-hammer-another-nail-in-the-c-312084

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.