New possibility of a total smoking ban in England
Posted by: Rasher on 11 January 2006
Yesterdays news report:
"Tony Blair has indicated that MPs will be allowed a free vote on the government’s plans to ban smoking.
In an interview with The Observer the Prime Minister suggested that offering a free vote would not undermine his legacy.
“I do no think there is any great point of principle but simply what is the right thing to do,” he said.
“Smoking is in a ‘different category’ to education reforms and ‘the core things’.”
So far 101 MPs, including 69 from Labour, have signed an early day motion calling for free vote on the smoking ban proposals and 91 have signed a motion calling for a total ban.
Mr Blair also said that chief medical officer Liam Donaldson was “absolutely right” to call for a complete ban."
I really hope that this time it can be sorted for good. Arguments on both sides, of course, but this has to happen eventually anyway. Let's just get it over with.
Posted on: 15 February 2006 by Earwicker
quote:
Originally posted by Stephen Bennett:
We've done this to death; the law now gives people working in pubs the same health and safety protection as other workers. It's that simple.
Simple and fucking stupid.
Posted on: 15 February 2006 by seagull
Earwicker,
I think you've just summed yourself up quite succintly in just four words...
Posted on: 15 February 2006 by Earwicker
quote:
Originally posted by seagull:
I think you've just summed yourself up quite succintly in just four words...
What is so clever about banning the activity that causes people to go to pubs? They are venues in which people drink and smoke. People who don't like smoking should not go to pubs or work in them. If they do, then they are twats. It's like going to a rock concert and moaning that it's noisy. Mind you, the way this country is going, the H&S morons will soon ban that too.
EW
Posted on: 15 February 2006 by Mick P
EW
You said... They are venues in which people drink and smoke.
That is no longer true, people go there to eat a decent meal or snack as well as drink.
Smoking is socially out of date and the smell of smoke is now unacceptable.
Stop whinging and get used to the idea.
Regards
Mick
Posted on: 15 February 2006 by BigH47
EW your logic and repartee are truely beyond reproach. NOT
H
Posted on: 15 February 2006 by erik scothron
quote:
Originally posted by Earwicker:
quote:
Originally posted by seagull:
I think you've just summed yourself up quite succintly in just four words...
************* ******** ******* ******* *****!
What is so clever about banning the activity that causes people to go to pubs? They are venues in which people drink and smoke. People who don't like smoking should not go to pubs or work in them. If they do, then they are twats. It's like going to a rock concert and moaning that it's noisy. Mind you, the way this country is going, the H&S morons will soon ban that too.
EW
Dear EW,
I think your reply to seagull is offensive in the extreme . Please moderate your behaviour, you owe seagull a public apology on this thread.
Regards,
Erik
Posted on: 15 February 2006 by u5227470736789439
Dear Erik,
Here, Here. You have hit on something that is deeply distastful however much viewpoints them-selves may be different. Plain abuse of the person shows something of a lack of imagination, and certainly a lack of respect. When I see this sort of thing, I just want to leave the country to be honest. It is on the up here, and I am sick of it...
Fredrik
Posted on: 16 February 2006 by MarkEJ
quote:
Originally posted by Earwicker:
quote:
Originally posted by seagull:
I think you've just summed yourself up quite succintly in just four words...
************* ******** ******* ******* *****!
What is so clever about banning the activity that causes people to go to pubs? They are venues in which people drink and smoke. People who don't like smoking should not go to pubs or work in them. If they do, then they are twats. It's like going to a rock concert and moaning that it's noisy. Mind you, the way this country is going, the H&S morons will soon ban that too.
EW
While I cannot endorse your repsonse to the august and venerable Seagull, I sympathise with your initial point.
I also see Stephen B's argument, but I believe that if the manufacturers were compelled to make the product safer, this would be largely mitigated. Many pubs have proper log fires -- indeed one could argue convincingly that this should be statutory requirement -- are we also to ban these on the basis that volatile organic compounds produced from the combustion of timber could reach both customers & staff? As for sparks -- well... And the additional hazard to staff from 24hr limit-free drinking? Government response: "Sod that, we need to keep our chums in the booze industry happy".
Actually, due to the powerful extraction effect of an open fire (and the open chimney in the summer), smoke hazard in pubs thus equipped is IMHO negligible.
Like I said, this law is misdirected. We've known for some time that car interiors are hazardous to health due to emmissions from the various materials used to construct them. Have we banned car use? No -- we exert pressure on the manufacturers to fix this, quite correctly. However, gross margins in the auto industry are a tiny fraction of Big Tobacco's, so it behoves them to take some notice.
We can pull these corporates into line, given the will and the insight. We can't expect either from this government, however.
Best;
Mark
Posted on: 16 February 2006 by BigH47
quote:
We can't expect either from this government, however.
Or any other party that is likely to form a government. They are all in the pocket of vested interests (some even more so).
H
Posted on: 16 February 2006 by Stephen Bennett
Deleted
Posted on: 16 February 2006 by Stephen Bennett
quote:
Originally posted by Stephen Bennett:
quote:
Originally posted by erik scothron:
Dear EW,
I think your reply to seagull is offensive in the extreme . Please moderate your behaviour, you owe seagull a public apology on this thread.
Regards,
Erik
Erik
EW is a nicotine drug addict and we are criticising his addiction and making it harder for him to indulge in public. It's only to be expected.
Try asking a smoker politely to not smoke in a (currently) non-smoking area. You'll be subject to torrents of abuse - as I was only last week when asking someone not to smoke in a wooden building that had brought in a smoking ban because
a smoker had set fire to it only a year earlier.
You can't expect addicts to be reasonable.
I saw another example of the power of the nicotine addiction the other week. While waiting at Norwich airport for my g/f, I was sitting next to a woman with two lovely kids.
She was a kind of cross between Nigella and Victoria Coren, really beautiful. I heard the kids mention that they hadn't seen their dad for a month or so - he was probably on an oil platform, I guessed. The plane arrived, the husband came out of the door - and did he kiss his wife or hug his kids? No he said - 'I need a fag' and headed for the exit. The plane journey he'd been on was 30 minutes or so. I saw them in the car park 10 minutes later and he was standing next to the car with his family in it - still smoking.
I'm sure he wasn't a bad guy - just addicted to a substance that held a tighter grip on him than his family - or his health for that matter.
Regards
Stephen
Posted on: 16 February 2006 by Earwicker
quote:
Originally posted by Mick Parry:
EW
You said... They are venues in which people drink and smoke.
That is no longer true, people go there to eat a decent meal or snack as well as drink.
One of my favourite haunts on a small Scottish island serves no food, but is host to those who wish to persue a vigorous course of alcohol and tobacco poisoning. Oh, sorry, no, some sandle-wearing nannying little turd in London says we can't smoke lest we give eachother cancer... ah well, I suppose we'll all have to stand outside on the road and get run over instead.
Consider that any pub or restaurant in the land could have banned smoking at any time in the past if they'd thought their customers favoured such a ban. You will note that they have not. This is becasue their customers smoke.
I wonder how many of the salad munching morons who voted for the ban actually frequent pubs anyway? I'm not even a smoker, but I truly dread to think what the powers that be will ban next...
En verra...
EW
Posted on: 16 February 2006 by Earwicker
quote:
Originally posted by Stephen Bennett:
EW is a nicotine drug addict and we are criticising his addiction and making it harder for him to indulge in public. It's only to be expected.
No EW is not a nicotine drug addict. EW very rarely smokes, but when he does, he goes to a pub like everyone else.
Posted on: 16 February 2006 by Rasher
Yeah, maybe that was a gross over-generalisation, same as non-smokers must be snobs who are obsessed with eating salad and visiting the gym at every opportunity, and probably have a fixed smile and smell of lavender.
Come on EW, light up...I mean Lighten Up.
Posted on: 16 February 2006 by u5227470736789439
Dear EW
Either you are a not a smoker, as suggested at 09:22 GMT, or you are, as suggested only two minutes later. Once one has started to smoke, I would say that you remain one for the rest of you life! Alright, I suppose that if you have managed five years without, you might begin to qualify as an ex-smoker, but relapses do happen.
Speaking as one who intends to keep the law, boycott pubs, and stay at home, gosh, you don't half meet some riff raff in pubs nowadays.
I wonder if you would mind doing me a favour for all that. You may well disagree with what some post here, and I know I do on times, but would you mind moderating your language, and level of personal animosity? A reasoable arguement and civility work much better, and are not things, horrible to obvserve. Fredrik
Posted on: 16 February 2006 by Gianluigi Mazzorana
Here in Italy we once reached a good balance.
Pubblic places like bars had offered the possibility to create saparate areas for smokers.
This was a very realistic and fair solution till the actual governement banned smoking from everywhere.
I like to smoke evenif i think it's not a good thing for health.
I do think that smokers should not be ghettoized as those who can't stand smoke have the right not to be forced to breath bad air.
Again balance is far to reach.
Posted on: 16 February 2006 by Earwicker
quote:
Originally posted by Fredrik_Fiske:
I wonder if you would mind doing me a favour for all that. You may well disagree with what some post here, and I know I do on times, but would you mind moderating your language
Someone implied that I was simple and f*cking stupid for pointing out that banning smoking in builings for smoking in was daft. I fight fire with fire. I smoke very rarely, but when I do I do so in the pub. Because that's what they're for.
EW
Posted on: 16 February 2006 by u5227470736789439
Oh! Dear EW!
It is simply question of manners, really. Rising to the bait is the reason the bait is set. One has to act as an earth rod, answer the point in civil fashion and you come out with the point, the set, and eventually the match. Otherwise all that happens is an unedifying and nasty scobble, which is not less embarassing to third parts than watching a family row at the supper market. Also you definately lose the match...
Good luck learning how to both have a view-point, and at least carrying some with you in the future! Fredrik
Posted on: 16 February 2006 by rodwsmith
Is there not an assumption going on in the "pubs are for smoking in" side of this?
I don't agree. I think pubs are for drinking (and increasingly eating) in. We occasionally go to our local pub for its weekly quiz, or for a pint and a game of cribbage and the odd meal if we can't be bothered cooking a sunday roast.
We'd go a lot more frequently if it weren't for the smoking.
I used to smoke years ago but I genuinely think I would have stopped earlier than I did if it had not been allowed in places that I went to.
On one level however, if the debate really comes down to one side's 'right' to smoke versus the other side's 'right' not to have secondhand smoke forced on them, then why shouldn't the majority win? Most people do not smoke.
Mind you, having said all the above I was perfectly happy with smoking and non smoking areas as long as staff weren't forced to work in the former against their wishes, and when the division was a tangible smoke-resistant barrier rather than a notional 'line' delineated only by a slightly less yellow ceiling.
One of the minor casualties of smoking is sense of taste (flavour rather than Lawrence Llewellyn-Bowen 'taste'). Smokers who stop have a real treat in store when delicate nuances of food and wine flavours of which you may be entirely unaware, start to reveal themselves to your new palate.
Then you can go and spend all that money you save on killing your liver instead...
Posted on: 16 February 2006 by Earwicker
quote:
Originally posted by rodwsmith:
Is there not an assumption going on in the "pubs are for smoking in" side of this?
[...]
Then you can go and spend all that money you save on killing your liver instead...
I like the way you think!
The point I was making is that publicans have not banned smoking in their establishments thus far because the majority of their customers either smoke or do not object to smoking.
Imposed, nannyish bans get on my wick.
EW
Posted on: 16 February 2006 by Stephen Bennett
quote:
Originally posted by Earwicker:
Imposed, nannyish bans get on my wick.
EW
This argument will get nowhere as you will never concede that workers in pubs should have the same safety rights as other workers (including yourself, I may add).
Anyhow, the point is moot. Others believed those rights should exist and they will soon.
I'm glad you have health and safety in your job and I'm glad people in the entertainment industry have the same rights as you do now.
It's nothing to do with 'nanny'.
Regards
Stephen
Posted on: 16 February 2006 by Earwicker
quote:
Originally posted by Stephen Bennett:
It's nothing to do with 'nanny'.
Hmm. So little to do with nanny, in fact, that publicans are deemed unqualified to make their own rules, and are to have smoking regulations imposed upon them by statutary law. Because smoking is bad for us, and we are all too stupid to decide whether or not we wish to be exposed to it by going into pubs or sticking a fag in our mouths and setting fire to it.
EW
Posted on: 16 February 2006 by Steve Toy
The extremist and absolutist option regarding smoking in public places has prevailed despite a raft of compromises on the table that would have suited everyone.
Spain has got it right, imo.
Posted on: 16 February 2006 by erik scothron
quote:
Originally posted by rodwsmith:
Is there not an assumption going on in the "pubs are for smoking in" side of this?
I don't agree. I think pubs are for drinking (and increasingly eating) in. We occasionally go to our local pub for its weekly quiz, or for a pint and a game of cribbage and the odd meal if we can't be bothered cooking a sunday roast.
Yes, of course. Do we not say 'lets go out for a drink' and never 'let's go out for a smoke'? I cant think EW would have much success if he went up to a babe and asked her if she would like to 'go out for a smoke sometime' but I may be wrong.
Posted on: 16 February 2006 by erik scothron
quote:
Originally posted by Steve Toy:
The extremist and absolutist option regarding smoking in public places has prevailed despite a raft of compromises on the table that would have suited everyone.
Spain has got it right, imo.
LOL it would not have suited me, I'm all for banning cigarettes period and heavy fines for anyone caught selling or using the disgusting things and long term imprisonment for second offenders and possibly bringing back public floggings
