{"id":217,"date":"2004-11-16T10:44:47","date_gmt":"2004-11-16T10:44:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jcm.org.uk\/blog\/2004\/11\/16\/england-also-to-ban-smoking-in-pubs\/"},"modified":"2004-11-16T10:44:47","modified_gmt":"2004-11-16T10:44:47","slug":"england-also-to-ban-smoking-in-pubs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jcm.org.uk\/blog\/2004\/11\/england-also-to-ban-smoking-in-pubs\/","title":{"rendered":"England also to ban smoking in pubs"},"content":{"rendered":"

I think I speak for all of us at Europhobia when I say “the bastards!”<\/a> We’ve already covered how smoking bans in public spaces don’t actually help people to quit smoking<\/a>, and everything Rhona was saying about Scotland pretty much applies to the proposed English ban as well.<\/p>\n

The fact that the English ban is in restaurants and “pubs that serve food” (whatever that might mean) makes this even more nonsensical. It smacks decidedly of a vote-winning ploy, aimed at the self-righteous, largely middle-class non-smoking lobby who want to be able to have a nice glass of chianti in a gastropub (probably along with their goujons of plaice in a light dill sauce with a side of sauteed asparagus and curly fries) without coughing on someone else’s smoke.<\/p>\n

The people who want to ban smoking in pubs are precisely the people who don’t understand what pubs are all about. It’s like me going into a vegetarian restaurant and getting annoyed that I can’t have a nice juicy steak.<\/p>\n

But hey – smokers can still go to pubs that don’t serve food! So that’s all right then. Pubs without food are – these days – usually in working-class areas. So the poor can still smoke themselves to death, as long as they don’t do it where Tristram and Priscilla can be upset by their fumes and coughing.<\/p>\n

Smoking has been a central part of pub culture for centuries – the majority of regular pub-goers either smoke themselves, or don’t mind – and non-smokers have the ability to go elsewhere if they don’t like it. It’s called market choice.<\/p>\n

So why can’t this sort of decision be left to the landlords? The Wetherspoons chain (one of the largest in the UK, with pubs in most towns) are already introducing chain-wide smoking bans. This alone will give most towns at least one smoke-free pub. If the market is calling for more non-smoking drinking dens, more will appear, just as more no smoking areas are appearing in pubs and restaurants throughout the land.<\/p>\n

Why legislate to force something on people when the market can dictate? That way everyone’s happy – smokers get to smoke, non-smokers get to have pubs where they aren’t bothered by me lighting up.<\/p>\n

Update<\/b>: Oh God… I appear to be agreeing with the Tories…<\/a> (Although the proposal by the “Lib Dem Youth and Students” to introduce “smoking licenses”<\/a> for pubs may also be workable…)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I think I speak for all of us at Europhobia when I say “the bastards!” We’ve already covered how smoking bans in public spaces don’t actually help people to quit smoking, and everything Rhona was saying about Scotland pretty much … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-217","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jcm.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jcm.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jcm.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jcm.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jcm.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=217"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jcm.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jcm.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=217"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jcm.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=217"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jcm.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=217"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}