Smoking ban and Smokers

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

They should have their kids taken away from them

No argument from me on that point, same goes for smoking in cars with their kids inside but there’s been no mention of banning such things from politicians as far as I’m aware

Is it only me that remembers smoking on airliners where you had a smoking and no smoking sections. Ban smoking altogether including vapes .

£7-£8 per pint in a pub,walks of shaking head and mumbling.

“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”

Don’t be silly, in my day we did both, I said these days kids don’t tend to mingle intergenerationally in pubs whereas in my day they did.. I didn’t deny that we also got drunk at house parties and the local parks.

And in my day it was Holsten Pils because the adverts were cool, not Boddingtons.

Oh, and a shout out for Wetherspoons. When I go out in Chorlton Wetherspoons is the place where I still see all the generations, the trendy bars sell beer at nearly a fiver a pint and are generally populated by single track types.

Wetherspoons on the other hand has beer at exactly half the price, so that’s where the kids tend to go as well as the old folk.

I go to both by the way, live and let live etc.

I love Spoons. Keeps the riff-raff out of the pubs I go to ;)

Wetherspoons on the other hand has beer at exactly half the price, so that’s where the kids tend to go as well as the old folk.

@inkster Chorlton spoons is the venue of choice for my daughters and their mates for pre-loading on the cheap before jumping the tram into town where the prices double

Threads like this make me not only want to start smoking again, but get back on the class A’s too

No argument from me on that point, same goes for smoking in cars with their kids inside but there’s been no mention of banning such things from politicians as far as I’m aware

Fairly sure that it’s illegal to smoke with kids in the car these days.

It’s been illegal for since 2015. You’ll know that because of the thousands and thousands of prosecutions for it

Oh… hang on a minute…

Apparently nobody has ever been prosecuted

Still… I’m sure the whole beer garden thing will be much more successful

next week: the law making it illegal to eat cheese in your bathroom

Still… I’m sure the whole beer garden thing will be much more successful

If it happens, isnt it just going to be a re-run of the indoor ban? Which is largely adhered to.

Or at least it was until I stopped going to pubs regularly. Might have changed in the last 5 or so years.

My youngest son reckons it’s just being floated to distract everyone from the budget.

Ban this or ban that!

The sign of a clueless govt.

I am a smoker (tobacco roll-ups only) but seldom smoked near people, and certainly never smoked where people eat.

Pub drink or eat?  Nope. Too expensive for me nowadays .

How much a pint you say?

Hence, I only go for drink about 5 times a year.

just being floated to distract everyone from the budget.

I can’t offer an explanation for the motive behind the suggestion but the next budget is still two months away

The motive is odd indeed. If it cuts down on smokers then great but the effects of reduced smokers won’t find their way into lower demands on NHS for what 30-50 years?

Not what I would call a pressing matter to be raised so soon.

80,000 people rooughly die from smoking every year, take action now and you’ll still have an impact. at just a couple of months, your risk of heart attack drops, and lung function improves.

There’s going to be other factors in that equation, air quality for one.

All your nasty diesel and petrol fumes must be really playing a part in that number.

During the pandemic lockdown with much fewer traffic on the roads, the air was a lot cleaner. But now its back to breathing in those car fumes.

Buy hey, as long as you have 2nd hand tobacco smoke somewhere near you, you can think yourselves hard done by.

Wear a mask?

The existence of something bad is not lessened by the existence of something else bad.  One could equally say:

“During the pandemic lockdown with much fewer smokers on the pavements, the air was a lot cleaner. But now its back to breathing in those cigarette fumes.

Buy hey, as long as you have diesel smoke somewhere near you, you can think yourselves hard done by.”

… and it would be equally pointless an argument.

Just listening to the discussion on Any Answers on R4.

Someone just said that amongst Churchill, Roosevelt, Stalin and Hitler, only Hitler did not smoke.

Let that sink in.

tbh, if Nigel Farage is against a smoking ban, that’s good enough for me to think it must have merit.

There’s nothing quite like robust evidence, is there.

There’s nothing quite like robust evidence, is there

We left the EU with less evidence than we have for the dangers of smoking in pub gardens. And that was completely fine.

Well, it wasn’t fine, was it.

@binners damn I love that track, the nostalgia, the deep, deep sense of regret from Iggy when he ***** up and overdoes it and doesn’t pull the “smoking, dusky, tall, American beauty”. #Pray4Iggy

All the outrage is about maybe include some regulation of outdoor smoking. Have a consultation, get the age-escallator through with some not-too-controvercial restrictions around the school gates and the likes and it looks like good politics. Beer garden smoking is in the public conversation and will help what is already the direction of travel.

Just as an aside to the folk saying the smoking ban was disastrous for pubs.  The pub i am in right now is heaving on a monday night.  Before the smoking ban it was a moribund bar with few customers

Now its standing room only on a monday night because its moved with the times serves goid food and is hip and trendy.

I haven’t seen a single person go outside to smoke.

So what youre saying TJ, is many pubs have shut down because of this ruling, and smokers who previously visited have stopped going, which as a result has lost them business.

Now its standing room only on a monday night because its moved with the times serves goid food and is hip and trendy

Why you there? ?

NO dyna ti  Before the smoking ban this pub was fairly empty.  Now its heaving. Still the same number of pubs round here.  Its heaving because its moved with the times.  Been a big demographic shift locally as well.  This bar used to be the hookers hangout.

AA – I am so hip I cannot see out of my own pelvis

*preens with manbun*

The pub garden smoking ban is a drag on our freedoms – 
David Mitchell

But the advocates of the ban tried to claim that it was not an assault on liberty, by citing the health impact of passive smoking.

Are they really going to make the same claim when it’s being done outdoors? That smoking in pub gardens significantly shortens the lives of significant numbers of non-smokers? More than driving non-electric vehicles or smelting steel or lighting bonfires on 5 November, activities the government is not proposing to ban?

People against this ban seem to hold personal liberty in high esteem, above all else. Presumably because they don’t like being told what to do. However smoking can really **** you up, and a lot of people who are **** up and dying seem to regret ever starting, so I can see that banning smoking entirely has merit.

Personally, I’m addicted to sugar in some way or other and will happily admit that I wish I could only buy decent healthy food.

Let’s just ban everything then, in case anyone does anything that negatively impacts their health and possibly later regrets it.

I’ve ended up in A&E on a number of occasions from my clumsy stupidity while out mountain biking, once having my face stitched and glued back together (which was fun).

Following your logic, let’s ban mountain biking too then, eh? What then, after we’ve banned that? Rugby, surely? Skateboarding? Heading footballs? In fact, let’s just ban football!  BMXing? Definitely Trampolining? That’s got to be on ‘the list’ Cakes? Biscuits? Sugary death which people can’t be trusted with. Playing Russian Roulette with Mr Kipling.

Apparently quite a few people were injured last years from being hit with rolled up wet towels. For the sake of the survival of civilisation we definitely need to ban towels. Just in case.

Ban it all! Ban everything! 

Job jobbed!

Hmmm it’s an odd one to go after as a matter of urgency.

The outside smoking thing not being a big public health issue on it’s own, what with ciggy smoke quickly diffusing in air. I think you pretty much have to blow it up peoples noses or directly into their mouths (who does that to a stranger in an outdoor public setting) for there to be a serious risk of illness from passive inhalation. In a confined space different story of course!

The pub i am in right now is heaving on a monday night.  Before the smoking ban it was a moribund bar with few customers

It shouldn’t really come as a shock that if you have 18 pubs and 17 have gone bust then the remaining 18th is a bit busy.

The first smoking ban definitely accelerated the closure of pubs across the country and this proposal will finish off the remainders that are limping along. Those that don’t have much outdoor space, can’t become family restaurant venues that also serve alcohol and those in locations with poor footfall/premises in secondary and tertiary areas of towns and cites.

It pushed loads of old hands/tenants out of the industry and fueled the already predatory behaviour of chain pubs stitching up new tenants with onerous leases doomed to failure for all but the most exceptional tenants!

There’s some rather extreme reactions on here to a pretty light weight ban. Personally it’s a pretty pointless exercise as it’s almost totally unenforceable and even of it was the affects would be minimal.

However and I’m all for a full smoking ban, we need to introduce the age related ban the Torys were talking about, stamp out smoking for good. The UK is way ahead of many other European countries, I’m in Germany at the  moment and smoking is much more prevalent here and in Mediterranean countries it’s still quite widespread.

The civil liberties arguments against a ban would be fine if we all had to pay for our own health care directlu etc. In which case do want you and take full responsibility for the consequences. We don’t live in that society though (thank God) so there is some quid pro quo between the state looking after you when you need it and how you behave.

Following your logic, let’s ban mountain biking too then, eh?

There’s stupid comments and really stupid comments and then comments that are stupid by stw stupid comments standard

It shouldn’t really come as a shock that if you have 18 pubs and 17 have gone bust then the remaining 18th is a bit busy.

there are still dozens of local pubs and none have shut – because they adapted to the change.  there are actually more places to drink around here than 30 years ago

The first smoking ban definitely accelerated the closure of pubs across the some parts of the country

fixed it for you

Those that don’t have much outdoor space, can’t become family restaurant venues that also serve alcohol and those in locations with poor footfall/premises in secondary and tertiary areas of towns and cites.

Two pubs that stopped doing food and have have no outside space have thrived as well.

Well run pubs that can adapt thrive.  The competition locally has meant pubs need to innovate and find a niche for themselves.  These niches include “traditional bar with good beer”

However and I’m all for a full smoking ban, we need to introduce the age related ban the Torys were talking about, stamp out smoking for good.

This really is the proper answer. Remove smoking from people who have never known it in the first place, and you make the problem go away with minimum fuss. Smoking in beer gardens and other public places will gradually fall, and the kids who’ve never known it won’t give a shit. Although, as the parent of a kid who’d get caught by the 2009 law if it’s enacted, his age group really aren’t interested in smoking. Or drinking for that matter.

Falling off a mountain bike has no detrimental impact on anyone else.  On Saturday in a car park there was a family with young child in push chair, both parents standing round him smoking.  Unfortunately that child has no choice whether they inhale the passive smoke.

This is why there needs to be a complete ban.  In some situations the Government need to act for the greater good and wider benefits to the population.  Health out trumps anything else.  There would be no negative impact in banning smoking, I guess if you are a smoker you will disagree and still think it’s ok to light up in a beer garden, next to a family having lunch.

TJ you know your local experience doesn’t reflect the situation in most other places?  I Googled from idle curiosity and found that Edinburgh has the highest ratio of pubs to population in the whole of the UK.7.4 pubs per 10,000 people in Edinburgh, the UK national average is 5.4.  So you are starting from a much higher base and Edinburgh’s tourist destination status trade must help.  I don’t know, but I suspect in similar fashion, pubs in London would be able to weather financial and legislative burdens better than provincial pubs.

Where I live pubs are closing.  Same in smaller towns, villages and rural areas all over the country.  The closure of a single pub in a village has a much bigger impact than a handful closing in a large city. Nationally 80 pubs on average close every month, that is the figure for those that cease to be pubs and never reopen, not those that change hands.  I am a life long non smoker who strongly supported the indoor ban.  A pub garden ban though feels petty, disproportionate and largely ineffective as a public health measure.   And likely to adversely affect pub licensees who live a precarious existence at the best of times.

Government need to act for the greater good and wider benefits to the population.  Health out trumps anything else.

Have you thought about the logical progression of that?  Beyond smoking?  How many foods, drinks, modes of transport and recreational activities are you prepared to see banned for the ‘greater good’?