A Breath Of Fresh Air !

I'm off to the pub now and for the first time I won't be coming back with my clothes smelling like an ashtray.

Three cheers England's new no smoking laws !

 

Here in Finland we have had similar law for month now. And I have to say that I really love it. Unfortunatelly that law doesn't cover everything so far, some pubs and restaurants managed to get permission for smoking and also outdoor areas aren't non-smoking areas yet.
Still, it is really big improvement.

 

Many cities here have banned smoking inside public buildings and restaurants.

 

We went out for a celebratory pub lunch - fantastic.

Apparently every pub & club in town was packed last night as the smokers got in their last smokey night out.

 

We've got similar rules coming up here, but only half-hearted, in that smoking will still be allowed in pubs smaller than 40 square metres (for some reason, which has never been explained).

 

In case Queen Margrethe II wants to have a cigar in a small pub?

 

The law applies to the owner, not the guest, so she wouldn't as such be prevented (though it would certainly not be good publicity). She's cut down on her smoking quite a lot lately anyway (and she smokes cigarettes, rather than cigars).

 

We've had it in Ireland for a couple of years now. Nice to see Britain catching up.

 

They are trying to pass similar laws here in North Carolina, but there is a lot of opposition from bar and restaurant owners, who fear that they will lose a lot of business if smoking in their establishments is banned.

 

Here, you can still smoke in bars. Not in eateries though and I like that.

 

It's good to hear these laws have been enacted in so many countries already. They're trying to pull one through the Dutch parliament as well that would ban smoking in all bars and restaurants, but it seems to be pretty far away still. Meanwhile every time you go out to dinner somewhere you'll find yourself right near a bunch of people smoking and your entire meal is ruined because you can't breathe. In bars it's completely terrible as well - whatever you wear cannot be worn again until a few washings.

 

I bet. You should have heard the whinging from the publicans here. If you believed them the smoke ban wouldn't just destroy their businesses, it wouldn't just destroy the entire fabric of Irish society, it would in fact bring about the end of days, complete with the four horsemen of the apocalypse.

Obviously this didn't actually happen.

 

One of the reasons for bringing such a thorough law in in England & Wales was because it had already proved a great success in Scotland & Ireland (2 countries with very similar pub cultures to E & W). Far from reduced pub trade, some large pub businesses (such as Greene King) are reporting increased profits in Scotland.

One sided effect that I can see and had not predicted is that pubs are going to need to be right on top of their cleaning as smoking was doing a good job of masking certain other odours - one pub I visited after the ban started had a noticable toilet smell that was previously concealed under clouds of smoke.

:smok:

 

Here in Newfoundland smoking in public buildings has been banned for over a year

 

Just found this site that could be really useful to UK smokers -

http://www.gooutdoors.co.uk/?gclid=CO79uaShjI0CFRcGEgod4Ad_og

:smok: :smok: :smok: :smok:

 

Well, the interesting thing here is that North Carolina is one of the biggest, if not the biggest, producers of tobacco in the USA. How's that for irony? This fact has tended to complicate the smoking debate a bit; clouding the issue, as it were.

 

The sales of alcohol and tobacco here has not been effected at all by the public smoking ban. Smokers continue to smoke and drinkers continue to drink. The smokers just do it elsewhere.

 

In Ontario smoking is banned indoors but outside it is allowed or if you have an area sealed off from the rest of the establishment

 

fresh air

The smoking restrictions have been enforced at Glasgow Airport, all Muslems are to be extinguished before entering the building!

 

Re: fresh air

Saw a Scottish comedian on telly the other night - he said -

"The idiots picked the only place in the world (Glasgow) where someone would punch a burning man".

The guy who did it said something like "I kicked the burning lad in the bollocks so hard I tore something in my ankle".

I laughed.