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Smoking to be banned completely in English pubs and restaurants.

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w1rebaby

20:27 / 11.10.05

I'm a smoker and I hate the smell of stale tobacco smoke... it really doesn't bring back any nice imprinted memories at all. I think that I've been pushed in the opposite direction; I associate it with desperation, depression, despondency, defeat. To me it's the smell of a place where people have been sitting for hours and days with nothing better to do but smoke. My bedroom stinks of fags and that's far worse in environmental terms for me than the piles of beer cans and general untidiness.

I do quite like smoking in cars though, except when you open the window and the wind blows the end off the fag onto your lap or down under the seat and you have to scramble to put it out before it sets fire to something important.

Our Lady Has Left the Building

08:25 / 26.10.05

Patricia Hewitt, the health secretary, has been forced to shelve plans to introduce a bill banning smoking after disputes continued to rage across cabinet.

Evil Scientist

08:31 / 26.10.05

Although, as I understand it, they will still be trying to ban smoking in areas where food is served. Which is fine by me, and all I really ever wanted in the first place.

Whisky Priestess

17:00 / 02.07.07

Oh, how things have changed ...

Anyway - now that the world is all fresh and smokefree and 1984-tastic, can anyone recommend London (or any) pubs which have nice outside space and where a poor nicotine addict can sit outside and smoke without getting run over/harassed?

I'll start: The Oxford and the Abbey Tavern, both in Kentish Town, are good: the Oxford has picnic benches outside (although rather near the main road for my taste) and the Abbey a delightful pub garden at the back with loads of tables.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

17:25 / 02.07.07

The White Hart in Stokey has a HUGE and nice beer garden.

Mind you, if the weather picks up it's bound to be full of people selfishly using up the chairs while not smoking.

HCE

17:29 / 02.07.07

Hooray! Maybe this time I can sit in a pub for more than ten minutes without sprouting a bouquet of tumors.

illmatic

17:49 / 02.07.07

Oh, are you coming over?

sleazenation

17:50 / 02.07.07

Well unless there is an extensive round of renovations on all pubs you'll still have the glory of centuries of stale tobacco smoke, nicotine stains and beyond that stale beer and vomit.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

18:00 / 02.07.07

And, if it happens to be a Wetherspoons, the stench of despair.

illmatic

18:00 / 02.07.07

Sleaze, it's called "character".

petunia

18:46 / 02.07.07

Beerfart is best.

I'm hoping there will be an increasing trend for incense in bars and pubs. That would be nice.

Failing that, it'd be nice if they cleaned the uphostery every now and again.

Also: glad i can go to a club and return feeling tired because of dancing, and not because of headtube pain.

Alex's Grandma

19:54 / 02.07.07

I'm hoping there will be an increasing trend for incense in bars and pubs. That would be nice.

Failing that, it'd be nice if they cleaned the uphostery every now and again.

I suppose what you could do is head off down to your local hostelry and make your feelings known there. After all, they are a business like any other; unless their customers speak up about best value, there is a danger that the management will lose its way.

I'm sure the landlord and bar staff would be very interested to hear from you, and you could report back here as to how it all went.

That aside, was cigarette smoke every really a problem in night clubs? I'd have thought the dry ice was more of an issue.

Mon Oncle Ignatius

20:38 / 02.07.07

I can bet the Angel at St Giles will be using their restricted garden a whole lot more than they used to; it was never great, but adequate.

Ryans on Church Street in Stoke Newington has an OK beer garden if you like rows of trestle tables all the way as far as the eye can see.

The Pub On The Park on London Fields is no doubt doing a yet more roaring trade too... except in the current monsoon, that is.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

20:43 / 02.07.07

I had a great Iain M Banks idea for getting round the smoking ban which involved gas-permeable forcefields. Then I realised it would still get damn cold.

HCE

23:06 / 02.07.07

Ah, the stench of despair. Yes, hopefully I'll be popping over for a quick hello next month, if all goes well. What should I bring? A few cartons of duty-free cigarettes?

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

23:29 / 02.07.07

I would love you FOREVER.

Evil Scientist

05:03 / 03.07.07

Well unless there is an extensive round of renovations on all pubs you'll still have the glory of centuries of stale tobacco smoke, nicotine stains and beyond that stale beer and vomit.

You're obviously going in the wrong pubs.

Or, from a certain point of view, the right pubs.

engage sanctimony field

Personally I'm looking forward to going out for a drink on Friday knowing that whatever I wear won't reek the following day (y'know, assuming I don't spill beer down myself or stumble into an open sewer on the way home, but at least that'd be a downfall of my own production).

Anyway, I'm sure plenty of "rebels" will be still lighting up in pubs. Join the fight! Donny Tourette will lead the way.

Ron Stoppable

06:55 / 03.07.07

And for south londoners; in Brixton, there's outdoors space at the Southside bar (formally the George 4) on Brixton Hill - well, it's tables in a carpark, really but it'll do and further down in Brixton proper the Duke of Edinburgh has a huge, comfy beer garden; the Gazebo and BBQ pit just about make up for the Eurostar that hammers past every 15 minutes or so.

Ron Stoppable

07:02 / 03.07.07

And, thinking about it quite a lot just at the moment - as a longtime smoker who tries to be sensitive to others, I'm completely on board with no smoking in restaurants, I'll live with no smoking in pubs - seems fair enough - but the thought that drives me crazy is the smoking ban at concerts.

I can't imagine going to see a band, someone really good, and standing / dancing / sweating clutching my pisswarm plastic pint of £3 Carling in one hand without a ciggie in the other. Not saying the ban is wrong, just that it'll be difficult. Really difficult.

Evil Scientist

07:05 / 03.07.07

but the thought that drives me crazy is the smoking ban at concerts.

Does that include open air ones?

Lea-side

07:17 / 03.07.07

Are there any Scottish (or indeed Irish or Welsh) 'Lithers here who can enlighten us to the practicalities of gigs and suchlike? For example, I read somewhere that a very busy gigs, you can get away with the odd one, because if yr jammed in the middle of 300 people nobody can do anything about it. Also, you cant very easily get out anyway...

Our Lady Has Left the Building

08:23 / 03.07.07

I wonder if this smoking ban means David Hockney is never going to leave his studio again, and all his appearances are going to be via satellite, a la the Future Sound of London?

The Sindy did raise the question of whether this would make things worse for the children of smokers, now Mum and Dad can't fill their quota of poisoning the lungs of others they're going to have to restrict themselves to their kids. ASH are apparently shifting their campaign to a total outlawing of smoking or that smoking parents get done for child abuse, which would lead to calls that a member of Her Majesty's Constabulary has taken leave of his or her senses...

Mon Oncle Ignatius

09:18 / 03.07.07

I can't imagine going to see a band, someone really good, and standing / dancing / sweating clutching my pisswarm plastic pint of £3 Carling in one hand without a ciggie in the other.

I've noticed at quite a lot of concerts (last Friday's Gypsy Hotel at Bardens being a notable exception) recently - before the ban came into effect - that the number of visible smokers had radically declined at gigs as far as I can tell, though this is based only on an impression than any statistical monitoring, obviously. Perhaps people were getting ready for the ban; or maybe there are just a lot less people who smoke these days.

It's going to be a lot more difficult to have a crafty spliff at a gig now too.

Evil Scientist

10:28 / 03.07.07

It's going to be a lot more difficult to have a crafty spliff at a gig now too.

I'm sure no-one would complain about you snacking down on a tasty chocolate brownie.

Mono

10:35 / 03.07.07

I have weak lungs and singing in smokey clubs & pubs is a big bad thing for me, so I'm actually really excited about this ban.

Janean Patience

10:51 / 03.07.07

I do quite like smoking in cars though, except when you open the window and the wind blows the end off the fag onto your lap or down under the seat and you have to scramble to put it out before it sets fire to something important.

The last word here kills me. Because if the coal sets fire to something unimportant in either the car or your lap just let it burn, yeah?

maneki neko

12:08 / 03.07.07

I can live without smoking in restaurants - pubs might be a bit harder, but what I find really difficult is the ban in workplaces. I work in a mental health project and until Sunday I used to smoke in the garden, with the service users, which was always a nice, informal way of communicating, building up relationships etc. So although I had a fag break, in a way I was still working. Now I have to leave the premises, which takes at least 10 minutes and means I have to lurk around street corners. Grrr, not a happy bunny.
I also feel increasingly paranoid about my fag butts, since a colleague told me that I can get fined if I throw them on the floor. Does anyone know it that is true?

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

13:21 / 03.07.07

ASH are apparently shifting their campaign to a total outlawing of smoking

That's ten and a half billion quid a year in tax that's going to have to come from SOMEWHERE...

I must admit I'm a little confused. On the one hand pensions are fucked, on the other they want us all to live longer. It doesn't add up somehow.

Evil Scientist

14:01 / 03.07.07

I also feel increasingly paranoid about my fag butts, since a colleague told me that I can get fined if I throw them on the floor. Does anyone know it that is true?

Not wanting to sound like my Mum or anything but isn't there a way to gwt rid of them that doesn't involve littering?

Quantum

14:27 / 03.07.07

Yeah, an ashtray. Buckets of sand have appeared outside most pubs already for butt disposal. (That almost sounds rude)

Quantum

14:32 / 03.07.07

I can get fined if I throw them on the floor

You can get fined £80.

Tom Paine's Bones

14:38 / 03.07.07

Grr, I went to my nice quiet local yesterday. And the beer garden is now full of smokers that I DON'T KNOW. I don't like change.

Whisky Priestess

14:44 / 03.07.07

Perhaps stay inside in the clean beerfart air with the regulars you do know?

Whisky Priestess

14:45 / 03.07.07

Also, it was pissing down hard enough to douse a tyre fire, let alone a fag, pretty much everywhere in the UK yesterday. How hardcore ARE these people?!

HCE

20:26 / 03.07.07

Hey Stoatie, let me know what brand you like and I'll keep an eye out.

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