RIP fags in public places

A last gasp of defiance - and now the ban

Finally, the 73% of English who don't smoke have the chance to go to the pub and come home without reeking hair and clothes and lungs being passively eroded.

Sod the "Nanny State" accusation. Not only is it a Daily Mail reader, simpering, cliche, but, as far as I see it, if people are too stupid to refrain from poisoning themselves, being coddled should be the least of their worries.

Actually, I don't care about them poisoning themselves, but I do care about them giving me cancer and then dressing this up as a "right" and moaning about "discrimination" . You don't care who you kill with your addiction, so why should I care about you having to wait until you get home to suck on your little stick.

So the government is only acting now because the health care costs are finally outstripping the tax that they have been wrenching from the nicotine dependent for decades? Sounds like good business sense too me.

(Spoken like a true ex-smoker, I feel!)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,2116154,00.html

"By 10pm, the air inside was thick with the kind of smoke that takes two shampoos to wash out."
(Methinks the author is a woman!)

"As the ban came into force - heralding what campaigners call the biggest boost to public health since the creation of the NHS - market researchers Nielsen estimated that beer sales at pubs, bars and clubs could drop by 200m pints a year. The volume of all drinks sold by licensed premises in Scotland is down 5% following the ban in 2006." (But surely, as the average smoking drinker won't be dropping into an emphysematic grave in his/her 50's, the long-term sales will more than make up for it.)

"...Bob Beech of the Wellington Arms in Southampton, who tried (and failed) to get his pub declared the embassy for the uninhabited Caribbean island of Redonda so it would be exempt."(Very resourceful, but it doesn't make him any less of a knob.)


"Yesterday afternoon, however, more than an hour after opening, not one punter had been through the Edinburgh Cellars' door. "We're always quiet on a Sunday afternoon because we don't serve food yet," said Mr Boulind. "But there are usually six or seven old boys in by now for a pint and they all smoke. They've been moaning about the ban for weeks."(Good. Less moany old codgers interrupting your pint is very welcome!)

"Elsewhere, some tobacco lovers refused to stay at home quietly. By noon yesterday more than 100 smokers had flocked to the Swan in Bolton for a "mass light-up". Landlord Nick Hogan said: "We are making a peaceful protest at a piece of legislation that is discriminatory." (Twats.)