Smoking ban

[lnr]

Lots of people are talking about the UK plan to totally ban smoking in enclosed public places which was voted through yesterday evening. Most of my friends list who have commented seem keen, though some have reservations. I'm curious as to what those who've not said anything yet feel. Do propogate this as widely as you like. Personally I think it's a good move, though I would have been as happy with the amendment which allowed smoking in private clubs. I do think a total ban in pubs is an excellent step. And no, I don't smoke, though I have in the past been in the "Well... a bit " category. - oh yeah and just to add I am still occasionally tempted if I'm out with one of the few friends who smoke. [Poll #673518]

Comments

[chickenfeet2003.livejournal.com]

Smoking was banned in pubs, bars and restaurants here a few years ago. The trade predicted doom and disaster but it didn't happen. The bars are as busy as ever but much more pleasant places to be. If people want a cigarette they step outside for one just like at work.

[dwagon.livejournal.com]

For the last question, I wanted to select all of the first three :)

One thing to bear in mind re private members clubs is that student unions are private members clubs, and as someone who spends at lot of time in the IC Union I'm very glad it'll finally be totally smoke-free next summer.

Other:

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

A nagging unease as to what they'll ban next.

When they came for the foxhunters I did not speak up, because I was not a foxhunter.
When they came for the smokers I did not speak up, because I was not a smoker.

Re: Other:

[beckyc.livejournal.com]

Yes, me too. I don't like the government's nanny state attitude and generally disagree with banning things.

But this case? Well, smokers are harming lots of other people, and I will like the end effects so it's a tough call for me.

[pir.livejournal.com]

I've lived in two cities where smoking has been banned (Boston and Dublin), exactly as chickenfeet2003 says all the doom and gloom sayers came to nothing. Life went on as usual, except I could breathe better when I went out for a drink. Those who wished to smoke just went outside briefly (and believe me, during a Boston winter you've got to be a pretty dedicated smoker to go out in -5C/-10C for a cig).

Smoking in pubs was one of my reservations about moving back to the UK, when I visit London for a weekend and go out with people for a couple of nights I'm coughing my lungs up for most of the rest of the week. Much happier about moving now :)

Re: Other:

[chickenfeet2003.livejournal.com]

They aren't banning smoking. They are banning inflicting your smoke on people who don't want it. It's more like banning drinking and driving. You can drink all you like just don't put me in jeopardy by driving.

Re: Other:

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

That comment up top about how, for smokers, it'll be just like at work - well, going to the pub *shouldn't* be just like work. Sure, some people work there, but the smoke should be accepted as one of the job's problems, like heat in a foundry, or being gibbered at by coked-up tools if you deal with PRs. And 'you can drink all you like'...well, for how long? With all the anti-binge talk being talked, I would be deeply unsurprised if some legal limit on how much booze people can buy came in within the decade. Already they're talking about pricing booze up, in dire contrast to that brief and quietly buried campaign against 'rip-off Britain'.

[artela.livejournal.com]

By "mixed opinions" I mean that I favoured the "partial" option - I believe in choice and the rights of both sides here - it should have been perfectly feasible to cater for everyone in some way :-(

Re: Other:

[glamwhorebunni.livejournal.com]

*agrees*

Re: Other:

[chickenfeet2003.livejournal.com]

Why should smoke be accepted as part of going to the pub? I'm old enough to remember when people smoked in the office, in hospitals, in the theatre, in cinemas, on planes, on buses, everywhere. We've decided that people have a right to be free from second hand smoke in those places. Why are pubs different?

[emperor]

I think it's an excellent thing. I really hate smoky rooms, I hate the way all my clothes stink afterwards, I hate the "smoke in your face" effect when you shower in the morning, and as an epidemiologist I'll be glad to see the back of so much passive smoking.

Re: Other:

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Hospitals should be as healthy an environment as possible, so it made sense to ban it there. Aeroplanes already have enough problems with air filtration, so it made sense to ban it there. In theatres and cinemas the fug tended to impair the view (the prime purpose of the experience), so it made sense to ban it there. But the total ban on trains and buses was already a step too far - apart from anything else, I would sometimes hit the smoking carriage just because it was easier to get a seat.
The ban in pubs is, like the (theoretically still law) ban on swearing in pubs, an unjust imposition for somewhere which is meant to be a place of relaxation. I've nothing against non-smoking pubs, maybe even giving them tax breaks - though it's noticeable that in all the time I was in Cambridge, nobody ever suggested going to the Free Press, and business in the smoke-free Wetherspoon's has been way under expectation.

[claroscuro.livejournal.com]

I'm an ex-smoker - a year and a half now, and heading on for two years, it's been. I've seldom had the desire to have a cigarette since I quit.

My mixed feelings? Well, I guess it'll be nice not to have to breathe other people's smoke in the pub, but at the same time, I'm really wary about banning smoking on other-people's-health grounds, or unpleasant-for-non-smokers. I'm terrified of dogs - largely because I've been bitten, the dog concerned being on a lead and apparently well behaved before that - so can I have a 'you should not be allowed to walk your dogs in public places because they may damage my health' campaign? - why should I suffer because you want to have a large and dangerous predator in your life? Why should you be able to make my bus reek of wet dog?

But if we ban everything that might impact on someone else, pretty soon, we'll be locked in little coffins, because that's the only way to be completely 'safe'. Hmm.

I'm incoherent, but that's kind of it...

[artela.livejournal.com]

The thing is, with a private members club there is nothing to stop the members of that club voting it in for themselves...

Re: Other:

[artela.livejournal.com]

Absolutely... what's next? Alcohol? Fatty foods? Being out in public unaccompanied by another adult?...

[artela.livejournal.com]

Public houses in cities/ large towns are quite a different matter to small rural public houses though. Our small rural local has just about enough trade to keep it from shutting. The landlady smokes. Her staff smoke. About 85% of the people using the public bar smoke. There are two bars, so it would be easy enough to have a smoking one and a non-smoking one, but instead smoking will be entirely banned and some of the already dwinding clientele will stop going. In this particular case where is the justice and fairness for any of those people?

[beingjdc.livejournal.com]

But the majority might want to smoke, that doesn't mean the minority shouldn't be allowed in what is their student union - as a thought experiment, consider the case of a student union which was racially segregated at the instigation of the white majority.

[aldabra]

Let's hope they ban that too; I'm fed up of having to hold my breath through a cloud of smoke on my way out to lunch just because we've got a sheltered doorway...

[catyak]

Doesn't California ban smoking within ten feet of the entrance to a public building or something like that?

D

Re: Other:

[bellinghman.livejournal.com]

Aircraft never had problems with air filtration - they never bothered. The major change since aircraft banned smoking is that the air is actually staler and stuffier on board.

When you're going several hundred miles an hour through clean air, diverting some through the cabin is never a problem. The actual expense is in warming it to a sane temperature. As it's that warming that takes energy, now they don't have the smoke, they don't refresh the air so much.

[ms-saffie.livejournal.com]

Like many other things in life, I believe that people should have a choice. I think that *some* pubs becoming non-smoking is a good idea, to allow people to go and have a drink in the atmosphere they like.
However, I disagree with the total ban. I think people should have a *choice*, and that should mean that people have to option to smoke if they wish when having a drink. People say that they don't like not having the choice to avoid secondary smoke. Well, how about other people's choice to smoke in a designated pub? What about *smokers'* rights? Smokers have stopped smoking at work, public transport and so on. I think one institution that allows smoking is not too much to ask.
I think one of the most concerning aspects of the ban is the imposition of the government on non-government premises and the public. They are telling people what they must do, they are telling *private* businesses what they HAVE TO DO. I think the government has intruded on the populace's life quite enough.
I like to think of myself as a responsible smoker. I don't smoke in restaurants, even in the smoking section, because people are eating. I sit away from non-smoking sections. I don't smoke at work, on public transport and so on. But I do think smokers deserve to have the opportunity to go into an environment where they can smoke. Just as others should have the chance to go to an environment without smoke.

Re: Other:

[bellinghman.livejournal.com]

Being overweight. I've already heard health experts suggesting it.

[artela.livejournal.com]

Big difference - smoking is a legal pursuit, racism isn't.

Re: Other:

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Really? So that's at least one area where it's already been counterproductive!

[simont]

I have to confess to being terribly selfish on this issue. Normally I like to take a balanced view of almost everything; in a case like this I should be thinking about the passive-smoking harm to customers, their choice to be there or not, the passive-smoking harm to employees, their choice to be there or not, the general ethics of the State dictating what we should or shouldn't do and the question of whether any given harm is bad enough to make it worth having a law, the question of enforceability, and probably nine or ten other factors which have momentarily slipped my mind. I generally find it easy to see both sides of an argument, and often find it rather more difficult to make up my mind into a clear opinion one way or the other.

But in this particular case, I find my lungs outvoting my brain two to one. I'm very fond of breathing, and in spite of all the potential objections to a ban I simply cannot find it in me to disapprove of a measure which will allow me to do so more conveniently in a wider range of places.