- This topic has 82 replies, 25 voices, and was last updated 17 years, 5 months ago by
.
- Posts
Im a light smoker and miss it most in pubs (on rare visits these days)
The ban is wrong
H&S and should be concentrating on the personality disorders created by obsessive addition to "fitness", crank diets and an obsession with stopping others from doing what they enjoy. There are a lot of mentally ill bitter people in this country whos presence in civilised life (ie a nice bottle of claret, a bet, a decent shag. and a ciggie) is a social menace. They are also invariably rather dim and extremely boring. Often very ugly too
As for pubs, befiore the ban, a local of mine had excellent air conditioing and filtering which ensured that you simply wouldnt know if someone was smoking right next to you. That was the way forward. I will admit, i didnt mucg care for very smoky atmospheres
Excellent post clivex and quite true.
Of course they won’t miss the social aspect as they invariably have no friends,being sociable or fair is anathema to them, most normal people would rather sit in a burning ashtray than in the midst of a few rabid anti-smoking fascists.
Drinking in itself is an interesting one. Unlike a cigarette, the alcohol you are drinking cannot be involuntarily ingested by a person sitting immediately next to you at a bar. It is therefore the freedom of non-smokers to go into pubs without the fear of contracting lung cancer or heart disease that is the key here.
Like ‘value’ debates on t’main forum there’s a strong sense of deja-vu here, but as ever it’s all good craic
Firefox,
What causes more damage to innocent third parties – heavy smoking or heavy drinking?
As for pubs I’ve virtually lost interest in them
Am I the only one who finds the sight of smokers being forced to ‘enjoy’ their fags in pub doorways both sad and deeply uncivilised?
The distinctive, smoky, louche, gently subversive oases that were an irresistable magnet for donkey’s years have for the most part been replaced by the clinically-clean, expensive, uncomfortable, food-orientated, plastic-fantastic, non-descript ‘chain stores’ that blight most city centres called ‘Slug and Lettuce’ and ‘Bar Ha Ha’ or somesuch nonsense
The imminent closure of Tetley’s brewery in Leeds and with it the demise of the Tetley Bitterman just the final nail in the coffin
Glad I entered this world when I did
My local is also a bit of a sorry sight these days and that’s on a Fri/Sat night but is there really much incentive to venture out in the middle of winter to pay £2.50 – £3 a pint + taxi fare and potentially come across hassle when you can get incredible deals when buying booze in the supermarket?
Im a light smoker and miss it most in pubs (on rare visits these days)
Would that be bayonet or screw fixing ?
As for pubs, befiore the ban, a local of mine had excellent air conditioing and filtering which ensured that you simply wouldnt know if someone was smoking right next to you. That was the way forward. I will admit, i didnt mucg care for very smoky atmospheres
I don’t smoke and had/have no problem with others doing it however I don’t believe there is an air conditioning unit made that could take away the smell on your clothes on a night out with smokers. I will also add that I do/don’t go much on people smoking while I’m eating as I do like to taste my food from time to time.
There is no doubt that the smoking ban has had an effect on the closure of pubs but it’s not just that. Attitudes have changed and younger people don’t see the advantage of going somewhere just to drink and chat, there are so many other ways of spending your leisure pound. It is a sad state of affairs nowadays that for most pubs to survive they have to serve food. My local twenty years ago was a thriving dart, crib, pool & domino & football playing pub. Due to the brewery raising it’s rent double the then landlord who had been there for numerous years weighed up the situation and couldn’t see how he could make the pub pay so left. And this was a pub that had at a minimum twenty to thirty people drinking every night with Friday, Saturday & Sunday heaving. A couple took it on but soon realised that the previous tenants action was justified and also left. It was then turned in to an eating only restaurant where popping in for a drink wasn’t accomodated. After several changing of hands two years ago it was taken over by 2 local couples who have kept it as an eating pub but who welcome with open arms anyone who wishes to go just for a drink. They have introduced curry nights and put on entertainment at weekends sometimes and are in the process of introducing a farm shop type of thing where you can buy local produce such as cakes, jams, vegetables etc etc. It is a struggle for them but they are willing to put in the effort to try and make the pub a type of community meeting place I suppose and I wish them well. It does go to show though that the days of drinking only pubs have all but disappeared which is a real shame.
Im a light smoker and miss it most in pubs (on rare visits these days)
The ban is wrong
H&S and should be concentrating on the personality disorders created by obsessive addition to "fitness", crank diets and an obsession with stopping others from doing what they enjoy. There are a lot of mentally ill bitter people in this country whos presence in civilised life (ie a nice bottle of claret, a bet, a decent shag. and a ciggie) is a social menace. They are also invariably rather dim and extremely boring. Often very ugly too
As for pubs, befiore the ban, a local of mine had excellent air conditioing and filtering which ensured that you simply wouldnt know if someone was smoking right next to you. That was the way forward. I will admit, i didnt mucg care for very smoky atmospheres
First paragraph tongue in cheek and could really be a good send up of sberry
Nice.The smoking ban has been in Ireland for nearly 4 years now and people still go to the pub and have their fag outside – it’s not the smoking ban that’s killing pubs it’s the cost of a night out.
You are deluded to think that people would rather sit at home than go to a pub where they can’t smoke. The vast majority of people over here are delighted with the smoking ban, including smokers.
You talk about people having choice – where’s the choice for the non-smoker if they want to go to a pub or restaurant without having to breathe second-hand smoke or go home without their clothes stinking. Where’s the choice for people who are employed in these industries – why should they have to suffer the consequences of people who want to smoke.
Get over it
Exactly DB. The choice issue is irrelevant- if you were to do anything else in a pub that was likely to discourage a fair chunk of the patronage (standing on a table and waving your willy about, say), I’d suggest the landlord wouldn’t be too concerned with your "right of choice" as he turfed you out.
– Stricter drink driving laws.
– More violence on the street.
– Credit crunch.
– Smoking ban.
– Less atmosphere, largely due to more food orientated establishments.
– Dozens of offers on discounted beer by supermarket chains.
– Sky TV offering thousands of channels.
– The Internet.Every single item on that list can be attributed to the decline of pubs in recent times – and I dare say there are more.
People simply had less reason to stay in and more reason to go out in the past.
I tend to smoke, although only when I’m drinking so one or two nights a week nowadays but I think to place so much emphasis on the smoking ban for the demise of the modern pub is way off the mark.
I wouldn’t put it in the top half of the above list. It certainly wouldn’t stop me going the pub.
Lee
Excellent stuff the last three posters.
Some real sense without a hint of bitterness.
Or alternatively, not completely OTS.
Choice on the matter could be the only progress. Smoking and non smoking bars are the only feasible option.
Total prohibition of something a huge section of the population partake in, to appease another close minded section of society is definitely a step backwards. Whether I smoked or not I would see that exactly the same way. Die hard non smokers fail to see how anybody could disagree with their intolerance. If intolerance is progress then god help us all.
South Park Season 7 Episode 13 "Butt Out" was actually on Paramount last night and it summed up non smokers perfectly well, through their parody of Rob Reiner.
Further to what Aaroniznezz said earlier if someones smokes whilst you are eating it is bad manners, plain and simple. People who smoke when other people are eating are usually the same people who will fart when people are eating.
David Brady asked where is the choice for people who work in smoking bars? Well the choice is not to work in a smoking bar, believe it or not bar workers are actually not this unfortunate band if incompetents who have no choice in life but to work in bars. Bar work is no different from working in a shop, be it a clothes shop or a newsagents, which are both generally non smoking, and both of which have the same recruitment criteria (simpler criteria in the sense that you dont need to be 18 or over to work there) and the same pay (minimum wage). The choice for people to be able to go somewhere to drink where there is no smoking, is something that most smokers fully endorse, the removal of that same privilege from smokers is the actual problem.
I dont think there is any bitterness in my post OTS, and I think it is fully sensible, but is my post less sensible because it is not in line with extreme non smoking opinion.
It’s a bit of a shame that the 40 odd pubs a week that are shutting and the 44,000 jobs that have been lost so far are never properly discussed. It’s the mass destruction on an industry and once it’s gone, it’s gone forever.
In answer to my own question, I think the age of the pub is over. There is no place for pubs in society anymore. I’m glad I am old enough to remember the good old days when we were freer.
I don’t know if I’m going to report that ugly H&S jobsworth yet, if he succeeds in getting anyone the sack, I will. It goes against the grain to dob someone in, but there again, I’m an old fashioned live and let live kind of bloke and we struggle on and try to behave in a decent manner towards our fellow human beings.
- Total Posts 17716
Found this thread very interesting but has anyone got any thoughts on those so called "Fruit Machine" player’s who go around the pubs nationwide armed with tools taking money from the machines?
Can someone explain to me why not wanting to die of cancer from someone’s 2nd hand fag smoke is intolerant? Pubs are shutting down because they are selling beer for £3.50 a pint when you can get it in the supermarket for 99p, people won’t stand for it any more and have been voting with their feet for years.
Small pubs have been snapped up by brewing conglomerates who have profitability targets to meet, long gone are the days when pubs were bought by policemen and soldiers as a business to run as they whiled away their retirement years. Now the pubs are names on a spreadsheet and if the cell turns red the pub closes down.
There’s no need for pubs to die out they just need to adapt to attract people in. It there’s a market for old fashioned pubs they will exist. The slide in pubs has been going on for years and although the smoking ban hasn’t helped, their regulars dying early of lung cancer can’t have done much for the bottom line either.
Smokers have been smoking outside for years at work so they’re used to it and lots of pubs have gardens and shelters for people to use. The smokers I know are glad that there isn’t smoking in pubs and restaurants any more.The ‘binge drinking’ culture (I hate how we have to have a term for everything nowadays, I mean, had anyone heard of a ‘credit crunch’ a couple of years ago) is also a contributor IMO. Certainly, I go to the pub on a Friday/Saturday down the local town and have a good few with mates. The amount of people who go to the local pub nowadays 5 nights a week and play tradtin games such as crib, dommies is on the steep decline it seems to me. If I do venture down my local club in the week for a few frames of snooker, it seems to be only the ‘old boys’ in there. Howmany youngsters (under 30 say) want crib when back at home theres Sky TV, playstations and the like? Not many from what I can see. Darts night does seem a notable excepton though.
I have to say I rarely go to pubs nowadays.
When I used to be a drinker I was in the pub almost every night, very often for the "lock in" afterwards as well and although I am a non-smoker I used to tolerate the smoke. Although I as soon as I was home the smoke smelling clothes were straight into the wash.
When I do venture into a pub now it is nice to come away without ones clothes stinking of stale smoke so I am in favour of the smoking ban on those grounds alone, as well as the obvious one of not having to inhale other peoples smoke.
However, what really stops me going to the pub more often is the extortionate charge for non-alcoholic drinks. Being charged a couple of quid for a glass of cola is bad enough but when the drink comes from those terrible mixer systems it is an absolute disgrace when it costs the pub coppers.
Nice.
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.