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A few more months in the last-gasp saloon The British pub chain JD Wetherspoon has decided to postpone a ban on smoking in all its pubs, although a nation-wide ban will come into force at the start of 2007, due to the government’s new law. A rather ironic tale.
How odd. In many ways, JDW was a good example of how, in a free market, people who wanted a quiet pint without breathing cigarette smoke or listening to loud music could do so. In my own area of Westminister, there is a large chain called the Willow Walk which I and a number of friends use from time to time. Everyone is happy, smokers and non-smokers alike. Considering that the majority of the adult population do not smoke, one would expect plenty of entrepreneurial pub and restaurant owners to cater to the tastes of said public, and indeed many such businesses have developed.
But of course, markets are messy and full of tradeoffs. And for our tidyminded masters, that is unacceptable.
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Quiet so.
A petition entitled ‘Freedom to Choose’ has been launched this week by a group of publicans. Over 30,000 copies have already been sent out across England and Wales. Another petition has been launched in Scotland where a smoking ban is due to be enforced at the end of March. If you would like the freedom to choose, in a supposedly free society, please visit http://www.thebigdebate.org/ and download a copy of the petition. Although mainly aimed at pubs and clubs, individuals can circulate it amongst friends and colleagues too.
Are you still allowed to smoke in bars in France?
I seem to remember that when Paris tried to bring in a smoking ban signs went up outside the bars the next day saying “This bar is for smokers only, Of course non smokers are welcome at their own risk” or something to that effect. And they just carried on as normal.
I know it is total in Italy, but there nobody sits inside anymore, they are all quaffing and puffing outside.
Our masters want us to be ticky tacky, little boxes all the same. I heard a radio five prog before the English vote where a trade unionist was making the case for a total ban because his bar staff members should not have to suffer other peoples smoke. Someone rang in and said that what with modern extractor fans you could have a room in a pub that had such fans and would cause no problem. Oh NO!!! said he. Extractors will take away the “Visible” smoke, even the smells of the smoke, but the deadly cartoginens (spelling?) would remain.
Well a few points there. How is that possible? I’m not a scientist but if secondary smoke is the danger these fanatics say it is, the British population should be down to about ten of us by now.
You used to be able to smoke everywhere. In cinemas and planes even. I just saw a clip on the news of an old Labour party conference circa Harold Wilson. He was puffing , Tony Benn was puffing, most of the front bench was puffing, and most of them are still alive.
I smell sanctimonious spiteful Socialist instincts at work here, rather like fox hunting.
Oh and by the way, in answer to the trade unionist fascist , I have never met a barperson who didn’t smoke. There must be some I grant, but if smoke bothers you so much get another job.
Follow Gerry Adams example. He was signing on as an unemployed barman (his stated occupation for the NI social security). I hear he’s doing quite well now, at a completely different trade.
P.S.
One that has killed a lot more people than secondary smoke!
It is not so much that markets are messy as that they do not provide good paying no heavy lifting jobs for the bureaucrats. Adult customers and publicans are unable to manage their relations between themselves with out the anointed holy paper shuffler.
Unfortunately, RAB, the world don’t work how either of us would like to think. Oddly enough, I don’t think this is a socialist plot to tell us what is good for us. I think it’s simply that some countries have banned smoking and His Tonyness feels that we will look old fashioned if we don’t follow suit. I think it is as simple as that. How can we stage a NewLab Olympics if you can still have a fag in a London pub? It is that mentality. I fail to see any concrete steps this government has taken to improve the lot of bar workers, so workers “rights” are out as a reason.
You make a good point, my various locals in South Manchester – the land-ladies smoke like troopers. This is a farce and round here it will never be observed.
You make a good point, my various locals in South Manchester
South Manchester? What, East Didsbury or West Didsbury? Chorlton?
RAB, another way of reminding oneself of how much things have changed is to look at any movie made before the 80s, like the early Bond films. 007 smoked all the time. Ditto Humphrey Bogart, etc.
Ditto Humphrey Bogart, etc.
Who, IIRC, died of cancer aged just 58….
Ah but Bogie was a primary smoker, and a chain one at that ,Daveon.
Both my grandfathers were too. One even smoked a clay pipe(even worse apparently). They both passed on aged 90+ What was your point again?
Even worse, I bet the next time we see the movie where he lights two and hands Bacall one one, on afternoon TV, some prig will have cut out the scene in case it corrupts “the Children”
Yeah – it’s pretty striking. I’ve just been watching through UFO (an old Gerry Anderson scifi series from 1970 – one I’d never bothered to watch till now) and there’s smoking in just about every scene. What’s interesting to me is that the old Star Trek series is such a glaring exception to this that it can’t have been an accident: no smokers on Star Trek ever.
OK, but seriously – there’s a good page here on the methods people use to cook their statistics on the smoking issue. I’m afraid it’s 90% American, nothing really relevant to Britain specifically – but the statistical sleight-of-hand used to justify these laws in the States are likely to have been the same in the UK.
What was your point again?
That regardless of the annecdotal evidence of people smoking like chimneys and living to 107, the actual data, especially for primary smokers is pretty damning.
Having looked at some of the “evidence” around secondary smoke, I’m more than a little concerned by the provenance provided by some of the teams who have found little or no risk.
It’s a tricky situation. I’m in Seattle today which went non-smoking a few months ago. I’ve got to be honest and say that it makes going out an awful lot more pleasant.
However, I was also in Barcelona a few weeks ago and they’ve had a system where the bar has to make a public declaration and it seems to work extremely well.
From a liberatarian perspective I’m not at all happy with the smoking ban, however, from a personal non-smoker perspective (who lost several relatives in the 50s to smoking related cardiac problems) I’m going to prefer it.
no smokers on Star Trek ever
I seem to recall reading that Roddenbury got into a lot of trouble with the production company over that one – the sponsors were not happy.
OTOH – I’m not sure that should we get off world colonies that we’ll take smoking with us. There are a lot of reasons, apart from use of Oxygen that you’ll not want smoke particles in a closed environment where the technology is needed to work to keep you alive.
Doing anything to excess will kill you. That’s a fact.
Well, perhaps not the one that they said would make you blind when you were a kid and not married.
There was Jim Fix, the jogging maniac, so goddam healthy he died younger than Bogart . Then there was the dude who thought carrot juice was the way to eternity. It was, but not in the way he thought. He went bright orange and expired rather quickly.
Choice is what I’m after not blanket bans and psuedo science or sanctimonious claptrap along the lines of the 19th century prohibitionists of alchohol and tobacco.
We should live in a grown up world, not a state run nursery.
By the way, my father died of emphesimia. It was his choice. He regretted smoking but he liked it . Still even he made it to 80.
Life is a series of choices and consequences that you should be free to make for yourself. Not have a faceless politician with a cause make for you.
Star Trek had synthahol, with all of the pleasures of alcohol and none of the pain. No doubt they could have invented a safe cigarette by the 23rd century. But they didn’t need to because all of the smokers died off.
I cannot really envisage Spock smoking a cigar, somehow.
I don’t smoke (anymore, quit decades ago) but I do enjoy going out to a pub or bar. I have to say that the ones that are non-smoking (mainly microbreweries here in Portland) are more enjoyable. Since the number of smokers is decreasing, I’ve been expecting to see a continuous increase in non-smoking establishments, but that hasn’t happened. I asked one bar owner about this and his comment was illuminating. Non-smokers may be in the majority in the general population, but no so among the regular patrons of his bar. He wasn’t going to risk losing his regulars by a smoking ban. Bird in the hand, and all that. BTW, he is a non-smoker himself.
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