Smoking Ban
I can’t believe it. The oh-so-wonderful government has decided to ban smoking in all enclosed public places in the UK. The bill was passed by the Commons yesterday but has yet to get through the Lords. No doubt our wonderful PM will find some way of circumventing the lords as he did with the Fox Hunting ban .
Simon Clark said to the BBC:
“People will continue to smoke and the idea that people are all going to give up smoking simply because they can’t smoke in a pub is nonsense. One of the problems with the ban when it comes in, will be that people will move into the street, they’ll smoke more at home, and it could end up being counter-productive.”
How true. While I’m a smoker (with no wish to give up) I don’t smoke in my house, I know that if I allowed it I’d smoke so many cigarettes that I’d soon be dying of cancer and broke to boot. At the moment, I smoke one on the way to work, one at lunch and one when I’m finished work. I’ll then have three or four over a pint in the evening and, if I’m up late, one before I hit the sack.
If I’m not allowed to enjoy my three or four over a pint in the evening then, no doubt, I’ll visit the pub less often. Although this would probably do my liver some good, it would reduce the number of customers the pub has, and would also (I suspect) lead me to begin smoking at home. I spend, on average, an hour a day in the pub. That means I spend, on average, an hour a day smoking heavily. Should I begin to smoke at home I’d spend, maybe six hours a day smoking heavily.
Of course, I could limit myself to one room and use it as a “pub replacement”, but what room? Certainly not where my desk is – I’d be smoking all day that way. The kitchen then, where all the food is prepared? Or maybe the living room – where the non-smoking guests come to talk. It looks like I’ll be smoking in my bathroom then!
Aside from the personal inconvenience this bill might cause, I object morally to the idea of a ban. What right does a bunch of suited politicians have to tell me that I can’t smoke in my local pub? If the pub owner is fine with people smoking there then why the hell shouldn’t people smoke there? The government’s “lets ban everything” philosophy leads me to wonder if we’ll have the secret police knocking on our doors. Whatever happened to freedom and personal choice, eh?