Most pubs these days seem to have no smoking zones, is this not enough in most cases. You usually find that's where you will find the empty seats!

As a non-smoker (or more accurately an ex-smoker)I prefer a less smokey environment. But it does worry me that we have seen the steady decline of the British Pub in the last few years, and is an outright ban what the industry needs? People's locals are closing left, right and centre. If the small village pub is forced to ban smoking throughout, it could have a disasterous effect. Then again, many a small village pub seems to get by flouting the licensing laws. Drinking cider when you are 16, the pub closes when the last customer leaves etc.

The smoking ban will come. We live in a Nanny knows best society. Whether they will be adequately resourced to be enforced throughout England, I doubt it, they could always put another 2p on petrol to pay for it!

<i>&quot;But it does worry me that we have seen the steady decline of the British Pub in the last few years, and is an outright ban what the industry needs?&quot;</i>

Maybe there's been a decline because non-smokers don't like stinking like an ashtray when they leave the pub and have been staying away. Just a thought.

What I don't understand is that, with Eire, NY, California etc all being hailed as huge successes and everybody happy and pubs nicer than ever before why don't publican's make this decision for themselves for commercial reasons?
I'm interested to read about Greene King's anouncement, but when a city centre pub in my home city of Nottingham recently decided to ban smoking this was major news and made the evening paper and television news.

Surely if its the panacea we are being told it is the commercial expedient would be leading us there long before legislation was required?

Dr D.

Kayb95, perhaps your right, although I do think an almost 200% price increase in the price of beer in the last 15 years hasn't helped.

Most, but not all, pubs by me now offer non-smoking areas, often quite large areas, and when I sit in these areas I don't tend to end up smelling like an ash tray.

I would personally like to see a statutory minimum provision for non smokers in licenced public houses. But whichever way you look at it the only way that gives workers the protection they need (and after all they are more important than the non-smokers, because they don't have the option to go off to the non smoking zone or to another pub)is an outright ban.

I remember Yul Brenner's commercials that he ordered to be run after his death from lung cancer. 40 or 50 years ago, the dangers of smoking were not well known. I would be in favor of a ban. As Budman notes it is nice to have a beer without cigarette smoke ruining it.

Actually, there is no such thing as an allergy to cigarette smoke. Read a great article on it the other day. People can have a &quot;sensitivity&quot; to cigarette smoke, but not an allergy. There went one of my excuses to get people not to smoke around me.

ThinGorjus, no, the Irish are nothing like the English, which is why I consider myself lucky to be living in Ireland and not England. The English pretty much do as they're told, anyway.

But I never believed the ban would actually work in Ireland. It's been pretty successful in Dublin, but the country pubs in some areas are another story.

I'm an ex-smoker, quit cold twelve years ago. I visit London often, where many friends still smoke hand-rolled cigarettes using something called &quot;Vanilla tobacco&quot;. For some reason, it doesn't smell as bad as commercial cigs.

I loved going out to the Pubs!
When I stopped smoking though, I started avoid them when in UK, because the smoke made me feel sick after a half hour or so. Now I will join my pals again!

The ban HAS worked wonders here in NYC, where I live. Yes, a few bars are resisting, but the huge majority are working it out, and there are lots of us who avoided them for years, who are now patronizing them again.

Thingorjus, there was also a recent article in the NYTimes that reported a large increase in the numbers of people who have quit smoking since the ban started.

Re &quot;allergy&quot; versus &quot;sensitivity&quot; I think neither of these terms are really descriptive enough to do justice to the harm done to others by cigarette smoke. It's simply poison. That's all. (yes, second hand smoke too) When I used to smoke, I was poisoning myself and other people, including the children in my house. It was hard to quit. It was worth it.

&quot;Non smoking zones?&quot; Where I live and work, it's the opposite, we have &quot;Smoking zones&quot;, which are enclosed so as to protect the rest of us from the smoke.

There are still many dedicated smokers, it's hard not to notice the sea of butts that litter the sidewalks. But I just love that each pack now costs something like $7.50, and I wouldn't mind if they put the price up even more, and use the extra tax money on improving our health care system!

I don't understand why there can be pubs which allow smoking and those that disallow it either. I believe a pub chain has disallowed smoking in pubs which are mainly food sales based. Good! As a smoker myself though, in a bar I would like to have a cigarette. I see the anti-smoking lobby more righteous, pious, priggish and selfish than smokers by calling for an outright ban. Have half the pubs disallow smoking and half the pubs allow it. Have those pubs that allow it employ bar staff who smoke themselves.

Irish are as stubborn as the rest and possibly moreso...but for some reason they (Govt)have had little trouble with the ban. If a working class Dub can stand it so can a working class Brit. People are actually having a laugh this summer smoking outside complaining etc...it's the winter that will show if it works!

Well.... here's a solution for those who simply can't stand the idea of being in the pub without the smell of tobacco;

http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/tm...name_page.html

It's not April 1st is it?

Jim

In Australia, its only a matter of time, before smoking is completely banned in all hotels &amp; clubs. At the moment you can't smoke inside restaurant areas of clubs/hotels/restaurants.
Has anyone seen the &quot;smoking rooms&quot; at Bangkok Airport. They are situated inside the terminal, fully glassed, with people inside puffing away. The room is so full of smoke, that you can hardly see the people inside.
I think lung cancer helps smokers give it up, glad I gave it up, the best thing I ever did. I had to have chest x-rays for 10 years after giving it up, to make sure I didn't contract lung cancer. Funny, how so many smokers think that the day, they give it up, they wont contract anything, silly them.