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Yes - I have said before this is regional and did so in my post above " across the some parts of the country"
I am just pointing out two things
1) this is not universal across the country
2) well run pubs who find a good niche will weather this
Edinburgh as a whole has a significantly increasing population and my area is a gentrified old port area
Some of the local places have a no smoking at their outside tables policy as well
In rural Scotland brexit caused huge damage to the pubs as they were used to having a lot of seasonal staff made up of young EU folk on gap years. Pubs have had to reduce opening hours because they cannot get staff ending up in turning away punters. I was discussing this with a rural pub manager just the other day.
Falling off a mountain bike has no detrimental impact on anyone else.
Neither does smoking outdoors. But if you’re arguing passive smoking outdoors puts a strain on the NHS, try visiting A&E on a Saturday afternoon? They should rename it the middle class sporting injuries ward.
On Saturday in a car park there was a family with young child in push chair, both parents standing round him smoking. Unfortunately that child has no choice whether they inhale the passive smoke.
And banning smoking in pub beer gardens is going to stop that how exactly? The kind of person who’s happy smoking around kids in pushchairs is just going to do that anyway. Most people, even smokers (booo, hiss… bastards!) wouldn’t be so inconsiderate and stupid.
As Uncle Jezza is regaling us all with anecdotal pub stories, I was sat in a particularly nice pub beer garden last night. One half of the beer garden had ash trays for the smokers, the other half signs on each table saying ‘no smoking’. Any pub landlord can do this. They can ban smoking altogether on their premises if they like. Most don’t, for obvious reasons
Is it a matter for government to get involved in with legislation? Of course it isn’t
I thought when I saw the proposals that this would just be supported by the type of sanctimonious busybodies who think they should be able to ban anything they don’t like and airily lecture other people on how they should live their lives.
…and so this thread has proved. God spare us from people who think they know best what’s best for us
I’m the very worst thing… a reformed smoker. Having packed in a decade ago I can’t stand the smell of fag smoke. It’s absolutely minging! I can’t believe I used to do it, but if other people want too, while having no actual detrimental effect on others ( other than upsetting the pearl-clutchers) then let them get on with it
Falling off a mountain bike has no detrimental impact on anyone else.
Ermmm - it really does. It uses up scarce resources. Lothian had to get a 4wd ambulance to get people out of Glentress IIRC and there is a significant number of injuries treated at BGH every weekend
Long term of course cycling is very good for health but it does not need to be full on MTBing for that benefit
Lothian had to get a 4wd ambulance to get people out of Glentress IIRC and there is a significant number of injuries treated at BGH every weekend
I heard the Welsh NHS send doctors to Merthyr Tydfil A&E to get fracture and trauma experience from BPW. Anecdotal, so I don't know if it's true. BPW also have their own ambulance, treatment room and 3 or 4 first aid responders. Every time I've been there I've seen an ambulance and/or mountain rescue team looking to recover a casualty. I expect BPW are coy about he stats for business reasons, but there must be a significant impact on local health services. Albeit at least partly offset by employment and income to the local economy.
I don't think the impact of MTBers injuries is huge in relation to the total need of the NHS. But to claim no detriment is wrong
But the question is, is it more of a burden on the NHS than the tsunami of demand for healthcare caused by passive smoking in beer gardens, which unchecked will bring the entire health service to its knees?
heard the Welsh NHS send doctors to Merthyr Tydfil A&E to get fracture and trauma experience from BPW.
Yeah I doubt that very much. Major city hospitals have trauma centres, so a bike park in wales will not provide much experience.
Fair enough Drac, I know you are qualified to say that. I did acknowledge it was anecdotal.
It certainly used to be the case that the number one cause.for absence from work in the Lothian and Borders Fire Service was fractures due to MTB falls (usually at Glentress) 🙂
Falling off a mountain bike has no detrimental impact on anyone else.
Neither does smoking outdoors
Now then....
It’s all relative innit?
We’re not talking about Roy Castle performing night after night for years in windowless working mens clubs where everyone is chain smoking.
We’re talking about getting the odd waft of a bit of second hand lambert and butler while sat in a field
Nobody is going to get lung cancer
Smoking needs removing from society... go smoke in your own home if you have to. In this day and age when we all know the dangers, it's beyond belief that people still take it up. Vaping is another bunch of shit we have to put up with - supposedly to encourage people to stop smoking, it's now become an epidemic in it's own right, right down to schoolkids, primary and secondary. Our local McD is overrun with vaping schoolkids at home time. I'd soon get complaints if I went and pissed next to someone's table while they were eating - same scenario, equally disgusting. Tired of the stink of both.
I can’t stand the smell of fag smoke. It’s absolutely minging!
This is where I'm at. I accept there is next to no risk of me contracting cancer due to someone smoking in a pub garden. It's just that I want to sit outside in the sun without someone's fag or vape (potentially even more revolting) smoke drifting around. Give the smokers a nice hermetically sealed room indoors away from the rest of us.
But we haven’t, in fact life expectancy is declining.
I have a sneaky feeling there are a couple of other recentish factors which have contributed to the slowdown in life expectancy improvements.
Weirdly, another one may have been the fallout from a cohort of ageing women smokers - as there was a noticeable bump in women taking up smoking during a period when fewer men were doing it.
I'm a non-smoking asthmatic weakling who doesn't like sitting in a fug of second-hand smoke, but even I think this is pushing it a bit, and would rather the government expended their energy cutting fossil fuel air pollution, exposure to mould spore via our terrible housing stock, and improving access to respiratory medicine, all of which would have a much greater impact on mortality and quality of life for millions.
Hopefully as we see any health harms of vaping, particularly in the young, start to emerge over the next decade or so, we will move quickly to nip that one in the bud, and save a whole generation from the kind of suffering experienced by their grandparents and parents.
I, and many others, prefer smoke & vape free.
What surprises me is that market forces haven't sorted this out for themselves. Or do smokers drink more?
In rural Scotland brexit caused huge damage to the pubs as they were used to having a lot of seasonal staff made up of young EU folk on gap years. Pubs have had to reduce opening hours because they cannot get staff ending up in turning away punters. I was discussing this with a rural pub manager just the other day.
Whilst you are at least partly right - a rural pub manager who wanted to solve this could easily find UK temp staff - but they will need to solve the acomodation challenge. Decades ago places used to provide free or very low cost digs - but the owners realised they could make more money from them as Air BnBs! Perhaps itinerant EU workers were more willing to live in overpacked squalor.
Interesting to see the correlation between those who are keen on banning smoking but are also in favour of legalising drugs...
Hopefully as we see any health harms of vaping, particularly in the young, start to emerge over the next decade or so
What needs to happen here, quickly, is a review of vape advertising legislation. Cigarettes are sold in grim-looking packets hidden behind closed doors with minty ones banned now even. Vape juice is front and centre on the little side counter in supermarkets, all fruit flavours and bright colourful packaging. I don't know if the display is empty boxes but if they aren't it's only a matter of time before a little kid thinks "ooh, sweeties" and it shouldn't take a tragedy to get it under control.
I'm all for vaping instead of smoking, not least because it doesn't cling to you like cigarette smoke does. I don't get up the morning after a night out wanting to burn all my clothes because someone on the next table was on the blue raspberry all night. But it is very obviously targeting the "get them hooked nice and early" market. Like many people his age, my dad started smoking when he was like 12 or something, I can't see him being suddenly wooed by a bottle of cherry cola sucked out of a cyberman's willy.
Its not easy to find temp staff in rural scotland. Thats a part of the issue - its very seasonable
Interesting to see the correlation between those who are keen on banning smoking but are also in favour of legalising drugs…
Its not illogical to be in favour of both.
Reminds tho of an instance in Canada while I ws there. There is a completely legal market in cannabis but there was nowhere legal for me to smoke it hardly. Not in my hotel, not in public parks, not withing 3 m of a doorway or ventilator intake, not outside pubs, not on the beach
IInteresting to see the correlation between those who are keen on banning smoking but are also in favour of legalising drugs…
I wouldn't necessarily say I'm "keen" on banning smoking, but I would support further increasing restrictions which smokers would probably see at the same thing! I'd also support (or in fact be even keener on) significant restrictions on vapes. It might seem odd then that I would be generally open to legalisation of other drugs - not to encourage uptake, but to undermine the organised criminals and dealers, generate increased tax revenue, control the quality of the "product" etc. Whilst removing the criminal association that makes people trapped by drugs also become trapped in the judicial system rather than health system. Clearly you can't put it in the hands of "business" though as tabacco and vapes have shown us what happens then.
What surprises me is that market forces haven’t sorted this out for themselves.
this is what seems to have happened at least in part locally to me. Huge competition with 25 plus eating and drinking establishments with 400m of my flat. they have had to adapt and attract new crowds to replace the hardened smokers who go out less. Some of the places have banned smoking on their outdoor tables.
Big demographic change locally but huge changes in the way the bars operate as well in large part
Vapes to help folk stop smoking - great.
Openly advertised and being taken up by kids or by non smokers - a real helth issue for the future.
Its heaving because its moved with the times. Been a big demographic shift locally as well. This bar used to be the hookers hangout.
So the pub you're were in used to be populated by neds and dirty old men and has now been bought out by some trendy hipsters and has benefitted from gentrification in the local area. That's why it's popular not because no one smokes.
Government need to act for the greater good and wider benefits to the population. Health out trumps anything else.
No it doesn't. If I want to kill myself by smoking, drugs, alcohol, mountain biking or other dangerous sports like skiing and climbing that's my right and it's got f*** all to do wiith the govt or handwringing idiots who should mind their own business. Passive smoking in beer gardens harms no one. If non-smokers don't like the smell they can go to a pub which voluntarily doesn't allow smoking in beer gardens.
On Saturday in a car park there was a family with young child in push chair, both parents standing round him smoking. Unfortunately that child has no choice whether they inhale the passive smoke.
And yet it's perfectly fine for that child to breathe in the pollution from passing vehicles in that car park? Or are you suggesting we ban car parks and cars too? If you're going to go down the 'won't someone please think of the children' line of argument there are many things that should be banned ahead of smoking a cigarette outside.
Openly advertised and being taken up by kids or by non smokers – a real helth issue for the future.
You can get juice with zero nicotine, it's basically flavoured steam.
Who, if anyone, uses it I don't know. But it's an option if you want to hang with the kids who think vaping is cool.
So the pub you’re were in used to be populated by neds and dirty old men and has now been bought out by some trendy hipsters and has benefitted from gentrification in the local area. That’s why it’s popular not because no one smokes.
Thats a part of it but also the new punters are being attracted to the bars by the change in ethos and lack of smoking. Non smoking pubs have attracted a new clientele
Even the trad bars are doing good business
Even the places that ban smoking outside are doing good business.
Its not illogical to be in favour of both.
Yes it is. TJ you know that banning drugs doesn't work, as you argue in the legalisation of drugs thread you started. What makes you think a ban on smoking will work where banning other drugs hasn't? All that will happen is a massive black market will be created along with all the crime and associated violence which comes with it.
Even the places that ban smoking outside are doing good business.
And good luck to them. Some pubs though, like my local, would be screwed and that would have a huge negative impact on the community and local economy given all the positive stuff it does.
Banning something just because some people don't like it is not a justification. There are many people who hate cyclists, should we ban cycling?
Some places like your local would need to adapt to survive - as is both mine and Matts experience.
17% of the population smoke. Losing them ( and of course it would not be all of them) creates opportunities to attract the other 83% more
TJ, every other post here you've spoken about "adapting" or "finding a niche."
Care to elaborate on how you mean?
It might be easy for a pub amongst many others in a large city with a vast potential clientele to adapt and find a niche. A lone tenanted pub in a small village being squeezed by the brewery and struggling to survive? Not so much.
Some places like your local would need to adapt to survive
TJ I think you underestimate the fragilty of the pub economy. My local nearly went under when the energy prices spiked. It survived by reducing opening hours and putting up beer prices. Is this what you mean by adapt? My local is a working class pub which has many daytime drinkers and locals who couldn't afford the sort of prices your averagee hipster craft ale bar charges. This proposed ban is driven by snobbery quite frankly. Middle class wan* imposing their own preferences on people they think are beneath them. They can * off quite frankly.
Banning something just because some people don’t like it is not a justification. There are many people who hate cyclists, should we ban cycling
No, because they are just ill informed pricks. People who dislike smoking, on the other hand, are right 😉
It’s just that I want to sit outside in the sun without someone’s fag or vape (potentially even more revolting) smoke drifting around.
Would you agree that it is fair to say that we are all immune to the smell of the fumes, from the vehicles that have surrounded us for the entirety of our lives ?
those who are keen on banning smoking but are also in favour of legalising drugs…
Thats actually a thing in many of the cannabis cafes in Amsterdam. You can smoke weed there, but not if it is mixed with tobacco
Food
Dog friendly
Music
Regular events
Bigger range of drinks
Unorthodox advertising ( the pub I was in last night has got into various guides and was on netflix)
History of the building / area
Promotions
child friendly
Games available
Sport on TV
Regular tasting nights,
Half price days
Find a niche and concentrate on that - we have trad bars, hipster bars, ones concentrating on food, ones concentrating on a good range of real ales, ones making a big deal of wine, ones with a big range of local gins, ones with board games, ones with themes, ones attracting on price etc etc.
concentrating on the trad customers to the exclusion of all others reduces your market. the trad bar trade has been in decline for a long time prior to the smoking ban. concentrating on a declining core market is a recipe for failure. You need to find new punters
One local pub even had a sewing night
TJ I think you underestimate the fragilty of the pub economy. My local nearly went under when the energy prices spiked. It survived by reducing opening hours and putting up beer prices. Is this what you mean by adapt?
No - thats exactly the opposite of what I mean. It means widening the clientele you are seeking not narrowing it. thats a classic wrong response
I have watched this around my locale for 30+ years. I have seen the pubs that take a clientele for granted struggle. I have seen the innovative ones boom
child friendly
Ahh yes, the indoctrination of small children that imbibing a poison is the right thing to do
TJ most pubs I visit are already doing most of the stuff on your list. Food, dog & child friendly etc.etc.
Once again, you are focussed on a city where there is scope for loads of options. Where there are 1 or 2 pubs in a village, I'm not sure a hipster, gin or wine pub would work.
No - but that pub needs to attract more customers and get them into the habit of going. One of the big expansions here in the 30 years I have lived is groups of middleaged women. 30 years ago they did not go into the pubs. Now its common
so for that sort of pub it needs to be a hub of village life - not just for the men who smoke. so games nights, even the seemingly ridiculous sewing night. Charity nights, competitions, board games etc
But as above pubs and pub going have been in general decline for years as folk drink less overall. Some may not be able to do this especially in a village that has become a commutter village.
[TJ's list]
Find a niche and concentrate on that
TJ my local already does everything on that list. In fact it's one of the most famous grassroots music venues in the country and has a list of DJs who have played there which most superclubs and big venues would be jealous of. By any measure it's a successful pub, but it still struggles in the winter and quieter times and relies on the locals who all mostly smoke to keep it going. It even gives the locals discounted beer prices as they recognise their importance and this ban will drive many away.
Would you agree that it is fair to say that we are all immune to the smell of the fumes, from the vehicles that have surrounded us for the entirety of our lives ?
I'd agree that it's a lazy false equivalence often trotted out by smokers to justify their habit. Asserting that because bad thing #2 exists, bad thing #1 must be less bad is woolly-headed thinking.
If I work across town, I need some form of transport. This is not a wildly uncommon scenario. I don't need drugs in order to get to work (though there has been times where it would probably have helped). We need vehicles, it's a fact of life, be that cars or public transport. I'm not going to be cycling from Lancashire to Cornwall for a two week holiday, it took eight hours to drive down and ten to get back, and I barely got everything in the car.
We're moving in the right direction with EVs and hybrids but the infrastructure isn't there yet (I struggled to find a petrol station in Cornwall let alone a charging point), they're hellishly expensive and their long-term longevity is an unknown.
Conversely, I managed an 18 hour round trip without a fag on the go.
Yes it is. TJ you know that banning drugs doesn’t work, as you argue in the legalisation of drugs thread you started. What makes you think a ban on smoking will work where banning other drugs hasn’t? All that will happen is a massive black market will be created along with all the crime and associated violence which comes with it.
This. Ban it, push it into the shadows, open another door for the criminal gangs.
I'm an ex-smoker, almost 20 years now. Hate the smell but don't believe it should be banned. We need a grown up conversation.
but don’t believe it should be banned.
it won't just be suddenly banned. The strategy (which is very sensible IMO) is just to make it gradually less & less appealing over time. It will die out naturally as successive generations cotton on to how ****ing stupid/expensive/inconvenient it is.
Find a niche and concentrate on that
To summarise that and many of the other comments on this thread:
Look at them! Just look at them with their football tops, their Turkey teeth, false tans, fizzy lager and Monster Munch, nipping into the toilet to hoover up lines of bad gak then going out to the garden to blow Marlboro Red Smoke and chewing gum flavoured vapes all over the place
Can they not sip a nice craft ale, or maybe a nice Sauvignon and have some olives?
Food
Great idea but requires a great deal of space not always available.
Dog friendly
Meh. I don't know many pubs which are dog-hostile.
Music
That can go either way. Little will drive me away from a pub faster than karaoke night. I go to a pub to chat with friends, not compete with Doris and Brian murdering 'Summer Nights.'
Regular events
"Events"?
Bigger range of drinks
Again, requires space. Did you ever not go in a pub because the drink choice was poor? Perhaps this is a "know your clientele" argument? Like, set up as a gin bar or a whisky bar maybe.
Unorthodox advertising ( the pub I was in last night has got into various guides and was on netflix)
I thought you didn't believe in advertising?
History of the building / area
Not sure what you mean here. You're talking about adapting, you can't just invent history. You could stick up some old photos I suppose, but that's not why people go to pubs.
Promotions
This has legs, happy hour and 2-for-1 and all that.
child friendly
Child prohibited I could get behind. (-:
Games available
Have you seen the games in a pub? A copy of Monopoly with half the pieces missing. I would -love- a board game pub but it's expensive to maintain and I'm an outlier here. Traditional pub games like Shut The Box might work, but again it's audience-dependent.
Sport on TV
Sport prohibited I could get behind.
Regular tasting nights,
This is interesting. How might that work? Essentially a mini beer festival?
Half price days
Great for getting people through the door, less good for turning a profit.
One local pub even had a sewing night
Now, that is brilliant.
Surprised you missed off pub quizzes, that would seem to be low-hanging fruit.
Ahh yes, the indoctrination of small children that imbibing a poison is the right thing to do
It works quite well for religion.
We all know the type of people proposing this law and others like it. We’ve all met them. Unfortunately. Just read some of the comments on this thread
They represent a certain type of pinch-faced, sexless, we-know-best, small-minded authoritarianism that seems so specifically English. They obviously feel they’ve got a receptive ear in Starmer as they seek to impose their petty, tepid, magnolia, Presbyterian worldview on the rest of us until everyone’s lives are as sterile and joyless as theirs.
People like this should always be ignored
With any new proposed law, especially one with far-reaching consequences, just ask one simple question… is it actually doing anyone any harm?
If the answer, as in the case of smoking in beer gardens is obviously no, then FFS just let people get on with their lives, even if it involves things you don’t like. There’s no way on earth a new government should be wasting its time on nonsense like this
You seem angry Binners. Why don't you lie down for a bit and have a fag!
Can they not sip a nice craft ale, or maybe a nice Sauvignon and have some olives?
The secret of my local is that it caters for everyone. On any given weekday the first in there are usually the local alcoholic pensioners who have nothing to do, then some other groups of mostly pensioners turn up on a day out. Then all the local buliders and tradesmen turn up at 5ish for a few after work, shortly followed by other locals (like myself) who go most nights but don't want to be there at 5pm. Then all the people going to eat food. Then the kids, hipsters, boat people and a smattering of local toe-rags turn up depending on what is on any particular day. All these groups mix perfectly well (for the most part) and interact with each other. I don't know of any pub where the local scagheads speak to the hipsters and middle class professionals. On the weekend it's much the same but you can also add loads of tourists from out of town who come for the DJs who normally play much bigger venues. This is the secret of its success, and if you removed some of those groups and focused on a niche it wouldn't survive.
And as if to prove the point It actually used to rent out it's side room to a local craft ale bottleshop. It was great and I used to go there all the time, but guess what? It closed after a few years because the dozen or so craft ale beer snobs who were its main customers didn't go there every night, and when they did they only had a couple of beers over a couple of hours.
Daz, my local is similar. We go down there a couple of nights after work and every Friday for a proper sesh. They don’t do food as there’s no kitchen. It’s a proper boozer. So there’s us lot having after work drinks, teenagers and early teeny-somethings playing pool and pretty obviously snorting coke, pensioners in after walking their dogs. A real mix, as pubs should be. You can vape inside because nobody cares, least of all the landlord. He knows his clientele.
The ‘beer garden, such as it is, is a couple of picnic tables in the car park. It’s right next to the main road where the traffic is permanently nose-to-tail and stationary, all belting out exhaust fumes. To ban smoking on the grounds of air quality would be beyond preposterous
Did you ever not go in a pub because the drink choice was poor?
yes
Sounds like some of your locals are too marginal and too poorly run to survive then. Letting folk vape indoors? Thats put off huge numbers of potential punters
If losing a small % of the small% of folk who smoke is going to kill the pub then its too marginal to survive
Cougar - we also have no music and no telly pubs round here
This is the secret of its success,
It sounds hellish.
Cougar – we also have no music and no telly pubs round here
Excellent.
I don't mind music in a pub. I just object to spending half the night going "WHAT?!" unless there's a band on which isn't shit. Cranking out Stock Aitken & Waterman's back catalogue at 110dB when there's three people in the pub one of whom is the bar staff is just barking. I couldn't be doing with it in Yates' Wine Lodge when I was 20, I sure as hell can't be bothered with it when I'm 50.
Sounds like some of your locals are too marginal and too poorly run to survive then. Letting folk vape indoors? Thats put off huge numbers of potential punters
It’s always really busy and has a really good atmosphere about the place
Here’s a mad idea… maybe not everyone wants the same thing as you? Revolutionary stuff eh? It’s not a poncey ‘gentrified’ gastropub. It’s an old school boozer where you go to neck 6 pints of Stella while watching the match. The landlord knows his clientele and has done the maths
whereas for many folk what you describe is a real turn off and is actively pushing folk away. YOU illustrate exactly what I am saying. concentrating on your core clientele when its a reducing number is recipe for failure.
We have old school boozers as well - I took you into one IIRC
They represent a certain type of pinch-faced, sexless,
This is the problem that I have....... smoking isn't just cool it's also sexy.
God I miss smoking 🙁
whereas for many folk what you describe is a real turn off and is actively pushing folk away
Luckily there’s plenty of other places for them to go, some of which I’ve taken you in
This is my point. The government saying smoking should be banned in ALL beer gardens is just nonsense, because it lumps every establishment in together with no regard as to what the owner, landlord or clientele want
Its just what some whiney, self-righteous middle class people in London want and they think they have the right to impose it on all of us
seems so specifically English. They ....Presbyterian
Errrr
One of the big expansions here in the 30 years I have lived is groups of middleaged women. 30 years ago they did not go into the pubs.
Really? I’ve been drinking in pubs for over 30 years and there’s always been groups of middle aged women.
Yeah stay away.
Oh, rest assured, I fully intend to. I've shared a pub with you, it wasn't an experience I'm in any hurry to repeat.
Uncle Jezza - next time you’re down I’m going to take you down to my local and make you drink 6 pints of Stella and watch the United match while everyone vapes around you
You’ll love it! 😀
round here Drac - yes. When I first started drinking round here women of any sort were rarely seen unless with a bloke. Now they feel safe and welcomed enough to go to the bars without a bloke in gaggles.
Binners - last time I drank Stella it did not end well. Just to warn you. I was on an overnight ferry, got lost trying to find my cabin and woke up with 2 extra pillows I stole from someone elses cabin.
United match? does that not count as cruel and unusual punishment
Fair play. I’ll spare you the United match. Nobody deserves to endure that and it might be a bit embarrassing for all involved, watching me cry
That’s what was missing from this thread………. not enough bitchiness!
I’ve shared a pub with both of them on quite a few occasions Ernesto and it’s always been frightfully civilised.
Then again, maybe it all went off big time between them when I was outside in the beer garden having a vape?
last time I drank Stella it did not end well. Just to warn you. I was on an overnight ferry, got lost trying to find my cabin and woke up with
Promising start...
2 extra pillows
.....Mildly disappointing finish
Quite refreshing that a ‘too much Stella’ story didn’t end with a conviction for domestic violence though, so extra pillows for the win 😀
We all know the type of people desperate to keep smoking around others. We’ve all met them. Unfortunately. Just read some of the comments on this thread
They represent a certain type of pinch-faced, sexless, we-know-best, small-minded self centered bore that seems so specifically English
I see what you did there. Very good. Did it take you long.
I see you’ve disproved my statement entirely by accusing me of being self-centred for me advocating people being left alone to do whatever they like, without being harassed by tedious self_righteous dullards
It’s an interesting interpretation
You know I don’t even smoke, yeah? Haven’t done for over ten years
You feel free to keep cuddling those 2 extra pillows of your righteousness though. They know you’re right. 😀
No it doesn’t. If I want to kill myself by smoking, drugs, alcohol, mountain biking or other dangerous sports like skiing and climbing that’s my right and it’s got f*** all to do wiith the govt or handwringing idiots who should mind their own business. Passive smoking in beer gardens harms no one. If non-smokers don’t like the smell they can go to a pub which voluntarily doesn’t allow smoking in beer gardens.
Passive smoking in beer gardens harms anyone who is unlucky enough to inhale the second hand smoke. Please can you point me to some research that shows passive smoking doesn’t harm anyone?
Or perhaps the smokers could smoke far enough away not to impact in the health of non-smokers?
Dangerous sports and smoking donot compare. There are always health benefits to “dangerous” sports, which may involve medical treatment. Even if medical assistance is required it may use up some precious NHS resources, but there is no benefit that comes from smoking.
Smoking is one of the few, if only past time that can have such a negative impact on others not willing to participate.
The smokers still want to have their tab in the beer garden, because they can. Irrelevant if it negatively impacts others.
Passive smoking in beer gardens harms anyone who is unlucky enough to inhale the second hand smoke
You’re outside. The cars driving past pose a far higher risk. Get a grip!
You not liking something isn’t a reason to ban it
You’re outside. The cars driving past pose a far higher risk. Get a grip!
You not liking something isn’t a reason to ban it
Please send me to a link that suggests passive smoking outside doesn’t harm anyone?
Protecting health, reducing the burden on the NHS is a reason to ban it. Liking something, doesn’t mean it should be allowed if the consequences impact others detrimentally.