The Dormouse in the Room

I have read the smoking ban described as "the elephant in the room" in discussions about the decline in pub-going and beer drinking. The point being made is that many people who mourn the decline in pub-going and beer drinking are missing an obvious point, i.e. that the smoking ban is destroying pubs.

I think the survey summarised below refutes that argument quite conclusively. Smoking has been banished from our pubs permanently, and a good thing too. I put up with smoky atmospheres in pubs for more than 35 years, and I think it's quite probable that other people's smoke has exacerbated my sinus problems, which over the years became significantly worse than when I started going to the pub in the early 1970s.

I find it quite extraordinary that a minority of smokers abandoned their social lives in order to avoid the arduous journey of a few seconds' walk to outside the door in order to have a fag. Was the right to smoke inside a pub more important than meeting their friends? If so, they were not particularly loyal friends.

The pub world is changing, as it always has: pubs in the 1950s were quite different from those in the 1970s, and they were different from those in the 1990s, and so on. I do know some lifelong smokers who say they prefer smoke-free pubs and have no problem with going outside to have a smoke.

Bearing in mind that no one under 30 has ever had a drink in a smoke-filled pub or bar, and they are the drinkers of the future, I'd say that this is a lost cause for those who are so committed to their addiction that they believe it's okay to pollute the lungs of non-smoking beer lovers.

I'm pleased to say that, although I know quite a few smokers, none of them is that selfish.

From vaping etiquette to the decline in smoking

In Whitby in 2012, I was at the bar in the Endeavour in Church Street when I thought I saw a plume of smoke from the woman next to me, so I glanced over and saw that she was vaping. She laughed and said, "You thought I was smoking a cigarette, didn't you?" I admitted I had; she showed me the e-cigarette which I looked at with interest because I hadn't then seen one close up before.

How things have changed in five years. I heard on Radio 4 today that there are now 2.2 million vapers, and it has become so common that Debrett's has issued an etiquette guide to vaping. Seeing that vaping is completely lawful, it is interesting that so many places have decided to ban it, including a lot of pubs, whereas prior to 2007, every pub I knew, other than food-driven ones, permitted smoking. I put the vaping bans down, partly to the difficulties in distinguishing smoking from vaping across a busy pub, but also to a change in attitudes since the smoking ban was introduced nearly 10 years ago.

Part of that change is due to the fact that no pub goer under the age of 27 years 8.5 months will have experienced smoking legally in pubs, restaurants or any other enclosed public spaces. It's not something they've been deprived of, because for them it was never there in the first place. Another factor is that smoking is generally in decline, with only 16.9% of adults in the UK now smoking, as compared to 21% at the time of the ban, and more than 50% of males and more than 40% of females in 1974.

The patchy tolerance of vaping suggests to me that if the smoking ban were to be relaxed, many public places, including pubs, would not now allow it to reappear on their premises. There would be a diminishing incentive to do so because, as the number of smokers dwindles, so does the the value of the smokers' pound. There is also the point, often made by opponents of the ban, that non-smokers put off by the presence of smoke didn't all flock to pubs in droves after 1 July 2007. I'd suggest that the same would now apply to smokers if the ban were eased; in both cases, the people concerned have simply shed the habit of pub going and developed alternative social lives.

However, I doubt smokers will be given the chance. The leader of the only political party committed to lifting the smoking ban has become a laughing stock after his antics during the recent Stoke by-election, and there is no will in any other party to change things back. I wrote in February 2010 about a survey of 1142 students by the National College of Legal Training which showed, among many other findings, that 90% of those surveyed would not repeal the smoking ban in pubs. Seven years later, I'd be very surprised if that figure wasn't the same or, as seems likely, even higher.

My position has always been consistent. I am not anti-smoking, but I dislike having to share the habit. I support the smoking ban as it stands and wish to see it neither eased - nor extended.

Smoking and the myth of the deluded drinker

I like reading The Pub Curmudgeon's blog and, given our widely different political perspectives, quite often agree with what he says. However, one issue that divides us is smoking in pubs. He recently wrote an item on state interference in individual choices, beginning with the sugar tax and moving onto smoking with the comment: All you silly people who pooh-poohed “first they came for the smokers”, where do you stand now?

Is he right? Have we non-smoking drinkers been led by the nose into a trap set by people using the template of the process that led to the smoking ban in pubs? Curmudgeon is a libertarian on the right, and though not a smoker himself, objected to the ban as an infringement of personal liberty. I'd rather hoped that, nearly nine years after the ban was introduced, that this was yesterday's issue; Curmudgeon has made it clear that he feels vindicated by the way things have turned out, more or less saying I told you so.

Contrary to what a few people have suggested in comments on this blog in the past, I don't subscribe totalitarian left wing politics such as we saw in the USSR. I don't advocate state regulation of every area of life, and I have stated a number of times on this blog that taxation should be used to raise funds to run the country and not as a method of social control (partly because it hits the poorest and weakest in society hardest, while leaving the better-off largely unaffected - in effect, a poll tax). In short, I'm closer to the libertarian rather than the totalitarian wing of the left, and my view of smoking is: smoke all you like, but I simply do not want to share your habit. Your right to smoke should not diminish my right to breathe smoke-free air.

In the build-up to the smoking ban, there was a lot of debate on the possible options: total ban, separate, self-contained smoking rooms, or the status quo. The fact that the status quo was never going to be a realistic option didn't stop some people arguing for it, including Curmudgeon who told us: "Let the market decide".

Could smoking in pubs ever have been an issue for the market? Can smoking in pubs be determined by the notion of personal choice?

When smoking was left to the market, as it was pre-July 2007, the market failed miserably. Despite the fact that a sizeable minority of pub-goers were non-smokers, the level of provision was minimal. By the time of the ban, the only non-smoking areas in our pubs in Southport that I knew about were in Wetherspoons. A separate area in an open plan pub doesn't really work as smoke can't read. My local experimented with a non-smoking room for a while, but abandoned it because the space was being underused in a very busy pub.

Market forces at work? We could realistically talk about market forces if smokers and non-smokers all drank separately in two separate clans, but they never did, and still don't. My own experience, which consists of 45 years of pub-going, is that, even when there was a non-smoking room, non-smokers would gravitate to the smoking areas to accommodate their smoking friends. This is not a situation the market dealt with; we know this because it didn't, and couldn't.

If rolled out to every pub that could accommodate a smoking room, the separate smoking room option would not work for very similar reasons: mixed groups of smokers and non-smokers would still not want to be split up, so we'd likely end up with a crammed smoking room with mixed groups of smokers and non-smokers, with other smokers in the smoke-free areas against their preferences. The fact that some could smoke in the pub, but others couldn't because the smoking room was full, would probably have been a source of discontent, with some smokers perhaps openly ignoring the ban: before 2007, I saw smokers deliberately light up in non-smoking areas of pubs, as I still do sometimes on buses, trains and other public areas where smoking is not allowed.

So how far does Curmudgeon's repeated claim that non-smoking drinkers ignored the precedent of the smoking ban actually stand up?

Firstly, a serious point: I'm heartily sick of Pastor Martin Niemöller's poem about the Holocaust being misappropriated for any reason; to do so is disrespectful in the extreme and trivialises one of the worst mass atrocities in human history.

Secondly, it simply isn't true. At the CAMRA national AGM in Cardiff in 2008, I went to a discussion group about what they called the neo-prohibitionists. The anti-alcohol campaigners had at that point been in business for quite a while; it wasn't a new phenomenon that arose after July 2007, and anyone who wasn't aware of what they were up to wasn't paying attention.

Despite all of this, should all drinkers have united behind the opposition to the smoking ban? I don't see how they could. If you prefer your air without smoke, how can you campaign for something that would retain it? Such a suggestion makes no sense at all. People were not being short-sighted; the employment of similar tactics against both smoking and drinking does not mean that the two different issues can automatically make common cause.

For 36 years I went to smoky pubs. I have had sinus problems all my life, and I suspect they have been exacerbated by second hand smoke. I also wear contact lenses. Pre-ban, campaigners for smoking in pubs didn't gave a toss about the effects that smoke can have on others. While it was all going their way, they could see no reason to make any accommodation with non-smokers. For them to have expected the people whose rights they regarded as unimportant to support them against the ban once it was likely to become reality really does take the biscuit. I have to emphasise here that I am not generalising about all smokers, most of whom I have not found to be selfish: only most of those who were vociferously opposed to any sort of ban.

It is all yesterday's issue anyway: six years ago, a survey of students showed that 90% were opposed to lifting the smoking ban; I doubt that percentage has gone down. If it pleases some people to see themselves as voices in the wilderness, modern day Cassandras condemned to tell the truth but never be believed, then fine, but it's best to see such delusions for what they are.

Smoking ban won't be extended

The Royal Society of Public Health has published a report suggesting that the smoking ban should be extended to pub gardens, outdoor eating areas, parks, squares, children’s playgrounds, and outside school gates. They state that the aim is to 'denormalise' (no, that's not actually a word) smoking and make it less convenient, thus encouraging people to give up altogether. The Society claims that 400,000 people have stopped since the ban was introduced in 2007.

I'm not sure this thinking really stands up, judging by the number of pub goers I've seen huddling against the rain around pub doorways. Smoking is notoriously difficult to give up, and I'd imagine that any smokers who chose not to ignore an extended ban outright would simply decamp to areas where it was still allowed.

I also wonder how such a ban could be enforced. With pubs, the responsibility would doubtless be dumped on the licensee who'd be subject to horrendous fines if their customers break the law. Probably the same with cafés and anywhere else with outdoor eating areas, but parks, squares, playgrounds and outside school gates? Who's going to enforce it, especially with severe cuts to local councils and police forces? There is a very simplistic view among so many people that all you need to do is pass a law banning something, and Bob's your uncle! I often see it in the letters pages of the local papers.

The Department of Health has just confirmed that there are no plans to extend the current ban. This is consistent with the original, perhaps ostensible, purpose of the ban, which was brought in under the guise of health and safety in the workplace. Such an argument could not be applied to applying the ban to outdoor areas, so the government would have been overtly and undeniably straying into the area of deliberate control of people's usage of a legal product. I wonder whether the degree to which a wider ban would extend state intrusion into personal freedom was a factor in the government's decision. Or did they just conclude it would be unnecessarily unpopular at a time when they have so many other unpopular things they hope to get away with?

Beer garden smoking ban

The Barbacoa is an established restaurant in Crosby that usually serves one guest real ale. It has taken the step of banning smoking from its beer garden, an action that the local paper claims is a first in the country, although how they'd know is anyone's guess. A separate smoking area has been created elsewhere for smokers. The ban was the result of customer feedback, not political correctness gone mad, busybody interfering or nanny statism. Apparently, customers didn't like the fact that they couldn't go out in the sunshine without encountering smoke. The move has earned them a Clean Air Award from the lung cancer charity, the Roy Castle Lung Cancer Foundation.

I suspect this ban may only be the first of many. It has been clear to me since before the smoking ban first came in that some people felt they now had the smokers on the run. I wrote about this kind of attitude in my post, the Lost World of Smoking: while I was definitely not writing about the smoking ban, I reported that when my employer had brought in smoking rooms, thus making the office smoke-free, some non-smokers wanted me as the union rep to take things further. I wasn't prepared to because the arrangements were in accordance with both the employer's and the union's policies, and my personal view that having clean air was well worth the small price of losing smokers for short smoking breaks didn't go down well. I feel that it was probably a similar attitude that drove the customers of the Barbacoa to press for a smoke-free beer garden.

I jokingly refer to the beer garden at my local as 'the smoking room', but I'm quite happy to sit out there and don't find myself "quickly enveloped by a Magnitogorsk-like fug of carcinogens", to use the words of a BBC writer (link below). I doubt there will more legislation in the near future to extend the smoking ban; I think it more likely we will have piecemeal erosion of people's entitlement to smoke, as has happened in the Barbacoa.

I've just typed 'smoke beer garden' in a search engine and came up with this item from the Daily Mail in 2012, and this from the BBC a year ago. Both support, perhaps unintentionally, the points I've made.

Getting the vapours

Sucking on a biro? No, using an e-fag

Funny: I was thinking of writing a few words about e-cigarettes when Curmudgeon pipped me to the post.

I was in the Endeavour in Whitby last August when I glanced to my left and saw what seemed to be a woman smoking, and so looked again more closely. She laughed and said, "You thought I was smoking a cigarette, didn't you?" I had to agree, but was interested, as I hadn't seen one close up before: they do look superficially like cigarettes and emit something that looks like smoke but is apparently water vapour. As far as I can see, they can pose no risk to the health or comfort of third parties. So why are they being banned?

Mitchells and Butlers, Wetherspoons and now Fullers have forbidden the use of e-cigarettes in any of their pubs. The reason is that it apparently causes anxiety to other customers, and the staff are under enough pressure as it is without having to check what people are using. While it's understandable that licensees would want to avoid the draconian penalties for contravention of the smoking ban, these aren't covered by it so there's no legal problem. It's just that you can't tell from behind the bar what the customer is using.

ASH (Action on Smoking and Health) are surprisingly sensible on this issue, cautioning businesses against introducing bans too hastily:

• Not all e-cigarettes look like tobacco cigarettes.
• Forcing people who are trying to quit to go outside with the smokers seems unfair, and may sabotage their efforts.
• If e-cigarettes become licensed as a medical product, they could become less of an issue over time.

Perhaps the solution would involve banning only those that look like cigarettes, so that the problem of differentiating them from ordinary cigarettes would vanish in a puff of vapour.

"Tax fags, not booze" ~ survey

Disappointing news for that dwindling band who want to see the smoking ban relaxed. Market research company mruk polled a representative sample of 1,058 adults from across the UK asking them to imagine they were the Chancellor of the Exchequer and needed to help the NHS save money. The results were:

• 37% wanted increased cigarette tax.
• 14% wanted unhealthy, high fat food to be taxed.
• 6% prioritised alcohol pricing.

Rachel Cope, head of mruk research, commented “Whilst almost everyone recognises the impact of smoking on health, that’s not the case with moderate alcohol consumption. If there’s no perceived impact on health then people see minimum pricing as just another tax.” Personally, I consider £7.98* for a packet of 20 to be excessive, especially as £6.17 of that is tax. With cigarette smuggling on the increase, it's stupid to keep on putting up the tax if by doing so you get ordinary people accustomed to breaking the law.

While this survey was not specifically about the smoking ban, it suggests to me that liberalisation of the ban would not be popular, a view supported by a recent survey by YouGov of more than 1,000 Scottish adults which found that 78% would be in favour of extending the smoking ban to include play areas, such as parks and sports facilities, with only 11% against it. My own view, as I've stated before, is that I don't want changes to the ban either way; I find I'm not much affected by cigarette smoke in the open air. However, the precedent has been set in Wales with many areas banning smoking in play parks.

Perhaps the fact that 94% didn't support minimum pricing for alcohol, despite the relentless propaganda of the anti-alcohol brigade, is evidence that the common sense of the British people is greater than we might assume from media reporting. That alone must be a good thing.

* Figures from the Tobacco Manufacturers Association.

Smoking in Southend

I've just been to Southend-on-Sea for a couple of days for a family occasion. I managed to get to three pubs, all on the front, but like most pubs on sea fronts, they weren't anything to get excited about. The best pint I had was Shepherd Neame Spitfire, and that wasn't quite cool enough.

I was sitting outside one of these pubs among the smokers and noticed a strange phenomenon. Although every single table had an ashtray, most smokers simply threw their cigarettes away without stubbing them out or looking where they were throwing them. The ashtrays weren't much used, but the ground in front of the pub and the adjacent pavement were littered with cigarette ends. While an accident is unlikely, it's not impossible. When I was a baby, the blanket in my pram began smouldering while I was in it because of a discarded cigarette; it was my sister who raised the alarm before I was injured. The London Fire Brigade says that "the fires caused by smoking materials ... result in more deaths than any other type of fire." The main problem in this situation, though, was that the place looked so unsightly, and I expect some people would be put off entering.

When people behave like this, it's hardly surprising that there are demands for the smoking ban to be extended. I don't particularly want the current ban changed, but such selfish and unnecessary behaviour will give ammunition to those who do.

The Lost World Of Smoking

Sophistication.
Hollywood starlet Sheila Terry

Please note:  this is not about the smoking ban, which I’ve written about previously.*  

I grew up with smoking. Many of my relatives smoked, including my mother and grandmother, and although my father didn’t, he worked for over 45 years in the tobacco industry. Films and television were full of people smoking, and adverts for cigarettes could be seen everywhere. Many of my student friends, including my girlfriend, smoked and, although I’ve never tried even one cigarette, I let people smoke in my room. When I got a job in the DHSS, smoking was allowed everywhere in the office, and the desks all had glass ashtrays with “Government property” stamped on them.

Smoking was sophisticated - glamorous Hollywood stars made it look so – and offering a cigarette was the mark of good hospitality. Accordingly, there sprung a whole world of paraphernalia around smoking: cigarette holders, cigarette cases, both portable and larger ones on the coffee table, expensive lighters, both pocket lighters and table lighters put out for guests to help themselves. Most lighters you see nowadays are plastic and disposable. Pipe and cigar smokers had accoutrements and rituals of their own. In places like the pub, smokers offered their cigarettes around the company before lighting up themselves, and the scroungers who always took one but never bought their own were well-known, in much the same way as everyone knows the drinker who joins in rounds but never puts his hand in his pocket. Funny how they seem to think no one notices.

Liberated? Looks like it. 
Sophisticated? Not a chance. 
Harry Windsor's ex, Chelsy Davy

As a child, I liked the designs on cigarette packets: the Player’s Navy Cut sailor, the horseman firing a rifle on Rough Riders, Senior Service showing a sailing ship, and later the more stylish Benson and Hedges Gold and John Players Special with gold lettering on a black background (modern packets don't seem as attractive to me - perhaps they're reflecting the health lobby's increasingly vocal disapproval by not appearing too eye-catching). Many times as children we went around the cigarette factory where my father worked, watching the process that began with raw leaves and ended with sealed packets of cigarettes.

Smokers would often say to us kids, with a knowing smile to the other adults in the room, that it was a filthy habit and “you don’t want to start, son.” Do as I say, not as I do, probably the least effective advice you can give. In the shops you could even buy sweet cigarettes in packets that looked just like real cigarette packets, and of course we pretended to smoke them. Imagine the moral panic today: "Sending all the wrong messages to impressionable young children!" As if we wouldn't know the difference. But smoking was completely normal then: until the 1980s when smoking bans began, the only place I can recall that smoking wasn’t allowed was in the classroom. In my school, the pupils used the time-honoured location of behind the bike sheds and the teachers used their common room. You could always tell which teachers smoked because their predictable tweed jackets had the musty smell of old smoke, but you thought nothing of it. 

My father told me that the cigarette industry in the 60s was preparing itself for the legalisation of marijuana. They had brand names, packet designs and recipes all ready to go: all that was needed was the lawmakers to do their bit, which of course never happened. I asked him whether he could get me one of the prototype marijuana cigarette packets for interest, but he told me that they had all been destroyed when it was clear that legalisation wasn’t going to happen. I assume that, as the tide turned away from the possibility of legalised marijuana, the industry didn’t want people to know that they had ever taken the idea seriously.

For a few years, I was a section supervisor in the DHSS, and for a while in charge of five staff who all smoked. Although not anti-smoking, I did find this uncomfortable, but it never occurred to me to complain, as I knew it was permitted. Then in the mid-80s, the department introduced a policy of smoking rooms. I thought this was a wonderful solution: the office air was clear, but smokers could have smoking breaks when they needed them. Everyone was happy. Except they weren’t: the 80s was the decade when the general acceptance of smoking as a part of everyday life began to break down. As the office union rep, I had non-smokers demanding I take up with management the fact that smokers had smoking breaks and they didn’t. I pointed out to these disgruntled members that they could, and did, take time to go and make drinks, but the reply was that smokers could do both. I wasted my breath arguing that we now had a smoke-free office, and wasn’t that good? It was, certainly, but not good enough. I finally gave up trying to persuade them and said that what the smokers were doing was allowed by departmental policy, and that was the end of the matter. Any complaints that some smokers took excessively long breaks I bounced back to them: they should take it up themselves with the manager who was being too lenient, because I was not prepared to fire their bullets for them. But they never did, as they didn’t want to fall out with their smoking colleagues; much better if I was the villain instead.

As a non-smoking union rep, I often had to stand up for the rights smokers had under DHSS (later DSS, then DWP) policies. When the DWP introduced a complete ban in all their buildings less than 12 months before the national smoking ban, I issued a union circular questioning why they had jumped the gun, which seemed to me unnecessary at that late stage. I concluded that our employer simply couldn’t resist one last opportunity to annoy staff on the matter.

Nowadays, the image of smoking is completely different from its earlier Hollywood sophistication. Smoking is banned in all buildings except private homes, thus pushing it onto the streets and - ironically - placing it much more on public view than before. Once when walking to a DWP office in Bootle for a meeting, I saw a large group of people standing in the street outside a Home Office building. I assumed it was a picket line and wondered why I hadn’t heard they were on strike. Then I twigged: they were smokers.

Next month sees the fifth anniversary of the ban. I’ve become so used to it that when I watch a film or TV programme over five years old, it looks odd to see people smoking in offices, restaurants and pubs. But then it also looks odd in programmes like The Sweeney to see police lifting out bottles of Scotch from their filing cabinets and drinking at their desks; I remember some old DHSS hands doing that in the 80s, but you’d face disciplinary action if you tried it now.

The people I have come across who are most intolerant of smoking are ex-smokers. Many years ago I had a girlfriend who was vehemently anti-smoking and wasn’t afraid to say so, to the point that I occasionally felt uncomfortable listening to her going on about it in company. Several years after we finished, I came across her smoking in a pub – she had taken the habit up again. I had some fun reminding her of what she used to say, and she had the good grace to look slightly embarrassed.

This is just a meandering and quite personal view of smoking and how it has gone in my lifetime from being seen as a sign of maturity to something that is barely tolerated. My final observation will be, as someone who often goes to pubs and whose circle of friends includes smokers and non-smokers, that I find there is generally less intolerance on both sides in real life than you would conclude from the on-line debating society.

* If you want to see my previous posts about the ban, click here.

Frustrated smoker exacts chainsaw revenge

"A 24-year-old man has been jailed for three years after pleading guilty to attacking customers in a Hull pub with a chainsaw.  Dean Dinnen launched the assault at the Endyke public house, north Hull in August 2011, after being thrown out for smoking on the premises.  He was overpowered by customers, one of whom received injuries to his arm during the incident.  Dinnen was later arrested by armed police officers."  From BBC News.  You can see the full story and CCTV pictures here that clearly show terrified pub-goers fleeing for their lives.  The injured man had to undergo surgery for repairs to muscles and tendons and had 21 stitches.  In view of the seriousness of the attack, a three-year sentence seems rather lenient to me.

This extreme overreaction to being told not to smoke smacks to me of the selfish attitude of entitlement that I occasionally used to come across in my former day job - "I have a right to this" (regardless of whatever anyone else thinks, and irrespective of the law) - and refusing the supposed entitlement sometimes led to violent threats, although they were rarely carried out.  It is disturbing that there are those among us who will try to exact such serious and potentially lethal revenge for nothing more than being told to leave a pub after refusing to put out a cigarette.  The only encouraging aspect of this story is the number of ordinary people who, as you can see in the video, tackled this maniac to stop him causing further injuries or damage.

Cigarette machines banned in England

As from today, cigarette machines are banned in pubs in England, with the rest of the UK following suit next year.  The BBC News item with stats and arguments for and against is here. 

I was in the Thatched Pub and Grill on Monday when a man came in from the vending machine company to tell the licensee that they would probably collect the machine by Saturday (i.e. today), but if they hadn't, to turn the machine around so it faced the wall.  I thought that odd - why not just switch it off? - until I learnt that licensees "must ensure all tobacco advertising on vending machines is removed.  Any person found guilty of displaying cigarette adverts on a vending machine could face imprisonment for up to six months, a fine of £5,000, or both."

Prison for displaying a cigarette advert?  That's worse than the smoking ban laws whereby a failure to display "no smoking" signs could result in a fine of up to £1000, or even the £2500 maximum fine for not preventing smoking on the premises, even though the actual smoker faces a maximum fine of only £200 (I've never thought it fair that the licensee faces heavier punishment than the smoker).  Such criminalising of licensees for these offences is grossly disproportionate.  As a regular pub goer, I don't recall ever seeing children buying cigarettes from pub vending machines, which is not to say it never happens, but I do wonder how far the stats and figures quoted are speculative?  The BBC news item states:  "It is ... estimated that 35 million cigarettes are sold illegally through vending machines to children every year."  (My emphasis)

Also, Trading Standards sending in under age volunteers and finding children can buy cigarettes this way isn't proof that children do in great numbers. Besides, isn't this a form of entrapment?

If the government wishes to ban cigarette machines as potentially being subject to such misuse, fair enough, but the penalties introduced are draconian and excessive*, seeing that cigarettes are not actually illegal.  I wonder whether any trade association is taking the matter further?

* Please note:  I am not referring to the existing penalties for selling tobacco to children, but to the new penalties for not closing the machines down and for not removing the adverts.

Smoke And Mirrors

I've just listened to You And Yours on Radio 4. There were two branches of the leisure industry who are worried about their future: ice cream makers and amusement arcade operators, both of whom are struggling in the recession, and already there have been some bankruptcies. In both cases, tax was given as a significant factor. A new gaming machine tax will be the last straw for some businesses. Representatives of both industries cited the increase of VAT to 20% as a significant problem.

The closure of five shops in Chapel Street, Southport's second shopping street, was announced on the same day a week or two ago. More closures are expected.

Recent excursions into our local pubs have shown some pubs doing very poor business in August, the height of the holiday season in a seaside resort. Some licensees have had to lay off staff, with a few talking about leaving the business altogether.

I should have thought the reasons why the retail and leisure industries are suffering so badly would be obvious to all, the main one being the recession, with its attendant job insecurity, redundancies, wage cuts or freezes, inflation, declining living standards, and 20% VAT. But no: there are those who proclaim that the main reason why pubs are closing is still the smoking ban, introduced four years ago. They must believe that pubs are immune to all the economic pressures bearing on other industries. In fact, they have additional problems, such as pub companies ripping them off and beer tax rising every year at above inflation.

One argument is that pubs survived previous recessions without the current rate of closures, and as the one additional factor is the smoking ban, it must be that that's tipped so many pubs over the edge. You could say the same about Woolworth's - it too survived every previous recession, but closed in January 2009. As the smoking ban obviously didn't kill Woolies, there must be other factors destroying businesses in Britain today, and pubs, after all, are businesses.

In reality, the smoking ban isn't the only additional factor at all. In previous recessions, pubs didn't have rip-off pubcos running them; they were run by breweries who wanted an outlet for their beers and therefore had no interest in driving pubs out of business, unlike pubcos who, if a pub goes bust, have a piece of property they can sell. Neither did they have to contend with 20% VAT, escalating beer tax and hostile anti-alcohol campaigners.

Some of the smoking ban opponents state that they don't go to pubs any more since the ban, which means - logically - they don't chat to licensees as I do (as opposed to ferreting around on the internet to produce dubious evidence to support increasingly peevish arguments). The view I tend to come across is that, yes the smoking ban is a factor, but by no means the only one and not even the main one.

That's the balanced view. I'm lucky in that I have a fairly wide circle of friends, but I can't think of a single smoker who has stopped going to the pub because of the ban; on the other hand, some friends have said they are finding the prices a problem nowadays.

I have no personal axe to grind: I'm a non-smoker, but not anti-smoking. As far as I'm concerned, people can smoke all they like, but that doesn't mean anywhere they like. I'm a drinker, but in many town and city centres, drinking in public will get you a fine, but I don't go around complaining that I can't indulge in a perfectly legal activity wherever I want to. I accept that it's restricted, even though drinking in the open air on a nice day is a very pleasant thing to do. My last employers banned drinking while working decades before they banned smoking.

The only thing that annoys me about some of the anti-ban brigade is that they ignore economic realities and prefer to blame the rate of pub closures on one factor alone. Simplistic arguments are always irritating and don't reflect well on those who promote them.

Lies, damned lies and statistics

Patron saint of lost causes

There has been some excitement among the anti-smoking ban lobby about a survey among pub licensees that showed 76% thought smoking should be allowed in separate well-ventilated rooms in pubs, and 64% felt it had been detrimental to their business.  The survey was in the Morning Advertiser, the newspaper for the pub trade; the article is here, and I came across it via Curmudgeon's blog.

This looks fairly decisive, until you actually analyse it.  156 licensees responded to the survey, 76% of which is 119.  With 52,000 pubs*, this represents 0.23% of the total number of licensees in the UK; in other words, fewer than 1 in 400 licensees actually responded that they wanted smoking in separate well-ventilated rooms. The sample is so low it is statistically invalid, and I really doubt it was scientifically selected. Like most newspaper surveys, it was probably self selected, and such surveys are notorious in that those with a gripe are most likely to respond, thus skewing the results. While I'm sure there are quite a few licensees who regret the smoking ban, this survey is utterly worthless and proves nothing. The attitude of most licensees I know is, that's the way it is, we just have to get on with it, but that's not a scientific survey either.

In February, I told you about an attitude survey of 1142 students by the National College of Legal Training which, among other things, showed 90% opposed to the repeal of the smoking ban. They're not only the drinkers of the future, but also the next generation of the UK's politicians, lawyers and opinion-formers, so it's reasonable to conclude that's the direction things are moving. People who put faith in the Morning Advertiser survey and its ilk are desperately clutching at straws, especially in the light of my previous posting.

* Source: the British Beer and Pub Association.

No review of the smoking ban

Our Con-Dem government has said it is ditching the review of the smoking ban that should have taken place now, three years after the ban came in, so the situation is 'no change' at least for a while. There had been some pressure to extend the ban to pub doorways and beer gardens, while on the other hand there are numerous requests on the website to propose scrapping laws for the ban to be reversed. Both these extremes will be disappointed.

I know singers who often used to find singing in a smoky room difficult, and asking the audience not to smoke immediately in front of them sometimes went down badly, even though this request was motivated solely by the effect of smoke on the singer's voice and throat. Some smokers were prepared to co-operate but others took offence, but even when they did co-operate, the general smokiness in a room could still cause problems. Singers have had to refuse bookings in venues they knew would be smoky; performers generally prefer not to turn down work, but they have to put their voice first. My late Uncle Arthur was a good singer in the style of Frankie Vaughan, whom he knew when they were both starting out; one of the reasons he gave up performing professionally was the deleterious effects of cigarette smoke in pubs and clubs.

Personally, I'm quite happy with the ban as it is - I don't want it extended or eased - so I've no complaint about this decision.

Lobbying MPs on behalf of pub goers

CAMRA has been asking MPs and Prospective Parliamentary Candidates (PPCs) to support its 'Beer Drinkers and Pub Goers Charter'.  So far, more than 500 MPs and PPCs have signed, many as a result of lobbying by ordinary constituents, which is encouraging. If you want to lobby your candidates, a simple way is to click here (you don't have to be a CAMRA member). This is a summary of the Charter:  

• Promote the interests of Britain's pub goers.
• Champion well-run community pubs.
• Rebalance alcohol taxation to support beer and pubs.
• Reform the beer tie to deliver a fair deal for consumers, including allowing local brewers to sell their beers to local pubs.
• Support the role of well-run pubs as solutions to alcohol misuse.

On the same webpage there is a poll asking "What do you think is the most significant reason that over 39 pubs are closing every week in the UK?" You can vote on that too if you wish. The results so far are:

• The Low Price of Alcohol in Supermarkets 38.56%
• Beer Tax 26.69%
• The Beer Tie 17.37%
• The Recession 9.32%
• The Smoking Ban 5.93% 
• Increased public focus on the health issues surrounding excessive alcohol consumption 2.12%

It's interesting that fewer than 6% blame the smoking ban. Although I don't agree with those who think it's the main cause of pub closures, I would have expected a higher figure.

The future's bright ~ the future's smoke-free!

A recent poll of 1142 students by the National College of Legal Training has shown some surprising results about how students today are considerably more conservative than their predecessors from the 1960s and 1970s. I've no intention of reporting all their responses - a newspaper summary is here - but an interesting fact is that 90% of those surveyed would not repeal the smoking ban in pubs.

These are the future drinkers. Whether you like it or not, this is the way it's going to be.

Smoking ~ No. 10 Just Says No

I wasn’t going to write on this subject again, having written about it exactly a week ago, but as it happens Number 10 has just responded to the petition to relax the smoking ban. Unsurprisingly the answer is ‘no’, but some of the arguments deployed lack credibility. It states, “Survey data, anecdotal evidence and reports in the media seem to indicate that the impact on the hospitality trade as a whole has been at worst neutral and in many cases positive.” Well, my own anecdotal evidence garnered by speaking to licensees about the ban suggests that it has adversely affected trade in pubs, and as I’ve said previously the ban is one of many factors contributing to pub closures.

Unlike some people, I don’t want either the outside bans that some anti-smokers demand or a relaxation of the current laws that the petitioners requested. I’m a non-smoker, not anti-smoking - I just dislike being enveloped in smoke, which is a different thing altogether. Having said that, I don’t think the Government is doing their case any favours by citing dodgy arguments that look as though they’ve been cobbled together on the back of an envelope, but then, as they’ve already enacted the laws which have to be obeyed, I suppose they just can't be bothered to show the petitioners the courtesy of a proper response.

Smoking in pubs

I’ve read many comments about the ban on smoking inside pubs and it’s clear to me that it’s widely blamed for the ills that currently beset the pub trade. Some people expect non-smoking drinkers to follow the line of opposing the ban because similar tactics are now being deployed against drinking; the thinking being along the lines of: “First they came for the smokers, but I did nothing as I was not a smoker.” The situation is not as simple as that.

In no particular order, the causes of problems for pubs include:

• Beer taxes rising by more than the rate of inflation. 
• Pub companies overcharging their tenants for rent and supplies (including drinks).
• Falling beer sales overall (except for real ale ~ just).
• Cut-price drink in supermarkets.
• Sophisticated home entertainment systems.
• Changes in drinking habits, with young people increasingly going to their preferred bars and clubs, and less to what they call “old men’s” pubs.
• More choices of places to drink, such as bars, restaurants, hotels and clubs.
• The recession, leaving people with less cash and either unemployed or worried they might be.
• Rising costs for brewers (e.g. raw materials) and pubs (e.g. utility bills).
• The smoking ban.
• Tougher drink-drive enforcement.

Yes, the smoking ban is definitely a factor, but only one of many.

I have been accused of being anti-smoking. I’m not, but I don’t like the effect a smoky environment has on my sinuses and contact lenses, and I don’t like smelling like an ashtray afterwards. With the ban, smokers are obliged to stroll a few feet out of the door where they can smoke to their heart’s content. I think it’s obvious which is the biggest imposition.

So, my attitude to smoking is simple: I don’t mind you smoking, but I don’t want to share your habit, thank you.

There are usually only two solutions offered: ventilation systems, or go somewhere else. I have yet to experience an effective pub ventilation system that can cope with the smoke on a busy night when the doors are shut and fresh air can’t blow in. Even with the doors open they’re often inadequate. At best they can only reduce the amount of smoke, and at worst do nothing except add to the noise levels ~ they never clear the air. As for saying go somewhere else, that’s just a dog in the manger attitude.

I used to favour the separate smoking room option, which was CAMRA’s policy too, but as one licensee pointed out to me, the primary purpose of the ban was the health and safety of staff, who would still have to enter the room to collect glasses, empty ash trays, clean the room and tidy up. As a former union health and safety rep, I realised that there wasn’t a compromise option that didn’t leave pub staff exposed to a health risk.

In the modern world of work, preventable risks have to be addressed or there may be consequences. If you’re not persuaded, then consider how many people have successfully sued for compensation for asbestos exposures that occurred decades ago. Continuing to allow employees to work with an identified, preventable health risk would be gambling that there won’t be mass litigation in the future. Far fetched? That’s probably what asbestos manufacturers would have said in the 1960s.

I believe there’s little chance of this ban being amended, so those of us who wish to go to the pub are stuck with it, whether we like it or not. Let’s just get on with it.