Smoking ban and Smokers

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.

Just one example of the benefits to the community of a local pub & one I know well. There are others in the area & more further afield. A quick google search shows other similar stories around the country. Go see the people who use these pubs & tell them they have no value.

https://packhorsebath.co.uk/our-story/
https://www.limpleystokecbs.org

When I first started in nursing it was usual to smoke on the wards

Really? Without being rude when was that?

That’s totally unimaginable!

Could they smoke in bed?

I see this as the thin end of the wedge. The government are “protecting us” from harming ourselves

Leaving aside, as kerley says, this already happens for illegal drugs its only partially the case here. Its just as much about protecting others from harm.

I used to work in the hospital laundry, 1996 on for a few years. Stag could smoke in the break room, it was horrendous, a thick cloud in there every brew time. There was a yellow tide mark round the walls at head height!!

Moved across to the labs in 2000, the old staff in there tell me there used to be ash trays on the benches. Culture of TB or gonorrheoae in one hand, tab in the other!

Disclosure – I’m an ex smoker, used to bloody love smoking and probably still would, but it’s best left in the past.

tjagain Full Member

When I first started in nursing it was usual to smoke on the wards – both patients and staff

Really? Without being rude when was that?

Really? Without being rude when was that?

That’s totally unimaginable!

Could they smoke in bed?

When you think about it, the attitude towards smoking and how it has changed in a relatively small amount of time is astounding – remember a time not so long ago when Rows 1-34 on a plane were non-smoking and Rows 35-70 were smoking (so the poor sods in the rows immediately in front got next to no advantage of being in non-smoking) – some airlines were still allowing smoking until the late 1990s! Or sitting in a restaurant eating a meal and having someone on the table next to you light up a post-meal cigar, or working in an office where someone at every other desk was chain-smoking. Not to mention having to wash all your clothes after a night out in the pub because they all stank of smoke the next day.

I don’t recall smoking being allowed in hospitals though.

I vividly remember going to the cinema as a kid in the 70s and looking at the screen through a thick blue haze of smoke.  Thick enough to partially obscure your view, as well as guarantee a sore throat and stinking clothes.  That was at the kids Saturday morning cinema club, never mind an adult film!

we’re in the Teign Valley about 6 or 7 miles west of Exeter, just inside the Dartmoor National Park.

Which pub? When I lived in places around Bovey, my friends and I made a mission of drinking in every pub within about twenty miles to work out which was best, and who served the best ham, egg and chips. I can’t remember which pub won! After a couple of years of country pubs with farm implements on the walls it was nice to find a metal pub in Totnes. (The Castle, iirc?) I wonder if I ever drank in yours?

About 10 years ago, I was in Antwerp for work.

I had no work on the Saturday but had to work Sunday.

Had a wander around the City.

Walked into a small bar, ordered a pint, then realised that everyone was smoking. Apparently, in Belgium, if the bar is below a certain size you can still smoke.

I sunk the pint quickly, only there minutes but by the time I made it out , I was stinking of smoke.

Seems incredible now.

I have a picture of my dad when he was a fitter on the line at RAF Gutersloh standing with a pilot in the QRA hut both of them tabbing away, there’s a fully fuelled Lightning complete with missiles standing not twenty feet away in it’s hanger. It’s OK though, there’s a door between them and the plane. This would’ve been the early 70’s

I have found the past five pages on this thread quite interesting because of the vehemence of the positions it has engendered. I just can’t get that worked up about it either way.

I have never smoked, not even a single drag. None of my family smoke and few of my friends beyond a ‘social fag’. I admit that the ban on smoking in enclosed spaces was a huge relief for me as I hate the smell of the cigarettes and the people who smoke them. I definitely started frequenting my local more often( but certainly not daily) when the ban came in.
I was not brought up in a culture of going to the pub, my father or his friends very rarely went to one. He is 92 and I have never ever seen him drunk or even close to it. He enjoys  a social drink still, but a nice red is his thing rather than beer. so I didn’t go into pubs until I was 18 at university and hadn’t been brought up to equate drinking with having fun.

So to me the concept that the pub is the hub of one’s social life doesn’t ring true because I was never brought up in it. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy going to pubs and used to go once every week but for a number of  reasons I haven’t been regularly for the past five years or so and tbh I can live without it. So some might argue that my opinion isn’t important as I am not invested in that social scene. But….
On the occasions that I have had meals in beer gardens I would move if someone lit up near me, but to be honest that was not very often as most people who smoke seem to be considerate in my experience. So a ban is not  likely to alter my behaviour but it might just change others. It may be a good thing in the long run but getting there is problematic.
I do think it’s going to be very difficult to enforce any ban without the cooperation of the people who run the pubs and how likely that will be must depend on their clientele.

I don’t recall smoking being allowed in hospitals though.

In the corridors yes but never on wards ime

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.

One time I got a rare glimpse into the None Shall Pass area that was the staff room in high school. You literally couldn’t see to the back wall and it wasn’t a large room. As a kid it staggered me that someone would go in there and think “You know what this place needs? More smoke.”

I have found the past five pages on this thread quite interesting because of the vehemence of the positions it has engendered.

Honestly, my biggest bugbear with it these days is normalised littering.  An ex was (is?) a smoker, she used to carry an empty fag packet or a ziploc baggie to stick butts into in case she got caught short of a bin.  If you’re a smoker it shouldn’t be difficult to not be a ****ing tramp about it.

I was going to mention school staff rooms.

Quite literally a puff of smoke would be released when the door was opened.

My junior school headmaster, would be smoking his B&H at his desk, give you a bollocking, before assaulting you with a leather strap.

There should be a complete ban on smoking. It does no good to anyone, not the smokers, not the non-smokers.

When I worked on a building site, it was unpleasant to have to work with someone who smoked. Often tools in hand, fag in mouth. I shouldn’t have had my workspace contaminated by a smoker, whether outside or not. As others have said it clings to your clothes.

When I lived in a tenement flat, it was deemed acceptable for another resident to walk by everyone else’s door while smoking until he got to his flat.

There is no nanny state in improving health.

I might fall of my bike and get injured, but even if i do the bike has contributed to health and well being, unlike smoking.

As others have said, why is it acceptable to leave a non biodegradable cigarette butt in the street?

I had a tradesmen round in April, he was a smoker. I saw him flick is cigarette butt into the garden and it was also acceptable to leave an empty cigarette packet hidden in the garden. I didn’t find drinks cans or any other litter from the rest of the team which were doing the job. Some/most smokers are inconsiderate. Even if you are allowed to smoke in a beer garden, it is still inconsiderate. Have a drink and smoke amongst smokers.

Completely ban smoking. I guess if you smoke you don’t see it that way.

I was going to mention school staff rooms.

Quite literally a puff of smoke would be released when the door was opened.

I started teaching in 1984, none of the three schools that I taught in allowed smoking in the staff room, each had a separate room for those that smoked to keep them away from the students. Perhaps I was lucky

There should be a complete ban on smoking.

Which would be as successful as the complete ban on cocaine

Smoking on wards – I saw the very end of it in the early 80s.  Literally ashtrays on bedside lockers.

why is it acceptable to leave a non biodegradable cigarette butt in the street?

That’s a point in itself.  In the days of the War On Single Use Straws And Carrier Bags why do we not have cigarette filters which disintegrate after less than 20 years?

Which would be as successful as the complete ban on cocaine

Username checks out.

pothead
Free Member

And quite possibly sit in their living room smoking while their kids are present

They should have their kids taken away from them