h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I still dont think they'd have risked losing loyal customers to their nearest rivals (by loyal, I mean fickle and easily swayed mob-minded drinkers). Doubt the gov could have offered them incentives enough to potentially lose their regulars. You cant get em back easily!

Worked in many pubs Robyn? Knocking a few pence of the price of bitter usually brings daytime drinkers in in floods.

and mos people have pubs that they frequent, smoking or not. A landlord operating a pub offering smoking wouldnt necessarily make more money than a non smoking one, it would depend on the atmosphere in the place, and its usual clientele more than anything else. Pubgoing regulars are strangely loyal. Unless youre Eccles Dole Scum, then you go where the beer is cheapest, whethere ou can smoke or not.

One reason why you have to legislate to make all pubs smokefree (apart from the human rights issue of staff) is that the scenarios being discussed of optional smoke free pubs succeeding via market forces are only going to work in cities, and probably only big ones. Take any community that has only one pub and it's not going to work (the idea that both smokers' and non-smokers' needs can be met).

Fair point Kea. But any country pubs I've been in tend to operate on the Lounge/Vault system of two separate areas. One for smokers, one for non-smokers.

in reply to the "bar staffs human rights" i as a barman would be more than happy to sign a form saying i accept any health risks from working in a smoking pub. Anyone that took a job working in a pub knew about the smky atmosphere. I accept the point about single pub communities having a problem, but a blanket ban is i believe unfair, and takes away my right to choice.

Psycorp, you obviously live in a more sophisticated culture than I do

Nirvanite, the point of human rights is that they are granted to everyone, not just you. So *you may be willing to waive your right to a smoke free environment, but that doesn't change the fact that without legislation there will be people who have to work in places that are smokey. Not everyone has free choice about where they are employed.

What choice is being taken away from you? To smoke in a pub? Why is that more important than my choice to not be exposed to smoke? Why should I go elsewhere but not you?

I've been very close to a few people who have worked in or run various drinking establishments. In one, on the outskirts of the city centre, going non-smoking would simply have lost them customers to the other four or five options nearby. When they banned smoking at the bar (not in the pub) people just drifted off to other pubs where they felt they were more welcome. Even if they had eventually drawn in a new cllientele, it's VERY hard to attract regulars and I doubt they'd have survived the slack time.

I believe that in a group of say six friends, if two smoke, chances are, that if the non-smokers are fairly neutral, the group will go towards the smoking pubs because someone has an opinion and a need. The others probably wont go against it because it wont bother them THAT much.

As far as I am concerned, and I believe I may have said before, the CHOICE should be on the part of the smoker... CHOOSE to smoke where you're not affecting others, particularly those who are more restricted (i.e. have job, find other job), or choose not to smoke when you're out. you could always stay in.

Im not saying that im more important than you or you are more important than me.

What im saying is people choose either to smoke, or not to smoke. But why should the Government have a right to tell smokers they can or cannot smoke in certain places.

Offering a partial ban, which would hav been fairer for everyone. I again point to the example of Las Vegas. In places where food is served, be it Bar, Restaurant, or Fast Food Bar, or places around children, smoking is not permitted.

However in other Bars, Clubs, and Casinos smoking is permitted, but most also have non smoking areas.

What im getting at is the right to choose has been taken away from people who smoke. I personally dont mind the smoking ban as such, but am annoyed that there wasnt a national referendum on the subject and i was forced through.

Well, no-one is stopping you from smoking. What is happening is that the govt is placing more importance on the freedom from smoke than the freedom to smoke. As long as you can smoke somewhere else, it seems like a good compromise to me.

You can argue it anyway you like, but each time you leave out a crucial factor eg in your last post you have completely ignored the rights of staff to be protected from secondhand smoke, despite it being mentioned only a few posts ago.

SWL, bless him, summed it up perfectly earlier in the thread. There is not ethical way to support smoking in public places, so the debate is really about how the legislation gets implemented.

People in my area are talking of boycotting the pubs and taking booze round to each others houses in turn instead. Fed up with lack of atmosphere in empty pubs!

Maybe the off licence is going to be the biggest winner.

"lack of atmosphere"

My local lost a whole bunch of regulars after the smoking ban came in (they started socialising at someone's house). But their place was filled by plenty of other people, it hasn't really made that much difference to the numbers in the pub. I think this is because the pub owners were proactive about the changes and did things to accomodate smokers and to find other ways of bringing in custom. As opposed to say just reacting and being negative about the whole thing.

our pub nearby had to shut down due to the ban. they hate the goverment now.

Who would have forseen that sort of thing happening...

because of the ban? How so? Is that a fact or are they simply blaming it on that? It seems pretty sudden, for a pub to go from running ok to shutting down in a couple of months... Not saying it's not happened, but knowing a few landlords in my time, they can tend to blame everything bar themselves for these problems...

no. all the people who went there smoked.
JAM!!!!!!!!!!!!!

"because of the ban? How so?"

Quite a lot of pubs near me have suffered a lot of lost business, especially the working class, old men with a pint and a cigar - type establishments. Looks like they'd rather play cards and smoke with a few cans at home.

It's the ones with no ready access to a beer garden or who can't provide food who are suffering. The Weatherspoons will always survive but, having worked in some of the more traditional type pubs where the regular clientele is about two dozen guys lounging around all day - if even a quarter of them decide not to go, the business is doomed. And they aren't the type of places families would want to visit either.

Some might say they need to change their business plan. Maybe so. But how many of them can afford the tens of thousands needed to renovate? Easier to sell up or give up the lease and another community resource is lost.

At a time when we are lamenting the lack of social cohesion, should we really be attacking what are quite often focal points for some members of the community?

On the other hand, if you have half a dozen people, and it;s always or nearly always the same half dozen, and nobody else goes into the establishment.... Well, I would question the viability of the business anyway (a cold and extreme view, yes, but not irrelevant), and how much community cohesion is lost if only 6 to ten people are involved? Maybe they'll now enter other areas of society? Or visit each other?

It's hard for the people who are trying to make a living, I understand that, but a thriving pub should be a thriving pub with or without smoking... If it's that important to the community...

"a thriving pub should be a thriving pub with or without smoking."

Would it be a thriving pub if you couldn't drink inside?