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Smoking in public places, return of the fag-end
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
You know how with winxp, if you mess up your computer, you can reset it to a time when it wasnt reset?
Assuming that this thread isnt going to be deleted within a matter of seconds, this is what im going to do with that godforsaken smokers thread.
This is from an extract from post of mine, althought admittedly i was drunk when i wrote it, its in my view, the last unanswered grown-up post:
People dont like passive smoke, and it is dangerous.
For this reason, regulations were put in place to stop this happening. most workplaces, all supermarkets and all public transports have banned smoking. It is the accepted norm that to have a smoke, you need to go outside, or to a designated smoking area.
But you (crescendo) want to go further than this. You want a complete, out and out ban on smoking in ALL public places.
Yet, because of the accepted norm of having non-smoking workplaces etc, your quarrell is not with these places. It is with the bars/clubs/pubs which are not non-smoking.
Your quarrel is with these places because you claim the smoke smells, gets in your clothes, and stings your eyes, as well as the problem of passive smoking. This isnt always avoidable because some of your friends smoke and for obvious reasons, you dont want to sit on your own.
For this reason, you want the governemnt to completely ban smoking in public, making it illegal to light up in any public area whatsoever. You expect anyone smoking in public areas to be arrested/fined/prosecuted because it is smells and theres a minute chance of cancer.
You see, the rest of it is plausible, but the last paragraph is just stupid. Think of how hard it is to implement these types of laws. My dads a copper, and he gets sick and tired of getting called to work at 10:30 at night to deal with the pubs spewing out dickheads. Imagine how he's going to feel if these big-brother laws happen.
Drunks are NOT going to stop smoking in a pub at night even if its against the law, no matter how much the barstaff protest. The result is going to be more trouble in bars as the barstaff have to call the police in, or "smokewatch" or whatevr the government has to bring in to implement these laws.
In this situation, the drunks will not go quietly into the night More trouble in the streets is NOT an acceptable side-effect of minutely lessening the chance of getting cancer.
But what if the barstaff dont do anything about a load of pissed pricks lighting up in their pub? I mean, you cant expect pubs to stay inside the law now, whats going to happen if your regulations are 'enforced'? Pubs and Clubs that will break the law, will probably shut down, such is the governents crappy strict regime that they will in no doubt use to appease the right-wingers, old-farts, and Crescendos of this country.
I suppose you could go all Thatcherites Against The Coalminers and mimick the "less coalmines, less problem!" motto, but thats a cop-out. OK so you could argue that closing down law-breaking pubs is a good thing, but you and i know the "shifty" ones are often amongst the better ones, and of course, if they close, where the fuck is everyone gonna go? To the pub? hell no, its been closed down. To the other pub? hell no, its full to the brim!
To the other other pub? nope! thats closed itself down, lack of attendance or something.
You see, 'dealing' with the problem of smoke in pubs by completely banning smoking in all public places, and making lighting up against the law, is not a good idea. It fucks things up. There were compromises we touched upon, but they were all shunned by you.
So what now?
Leave things as they have been for decades where only about 10% of the population properly hated smoking? or change them, to piss off the 15%ish of the population that smoke, the 10% who ONLY smoke in pubs/clubs and dont smoke regularly, and piss off the rest of the people who just liked to go into a pub/club and enjoy themselves, without all the hustle and bustle of people leaving to have cigarettes, and piss off the people who have to walk past all the drunks outside the pub, and piss off the people who have their local shut-down for not obeying the rules, and piss people off who's smoker friends have to disappear every 20mins-1hour.
You see, the problem will fix itself in time. The less acceptable smoking becomes (hell since its become infintely less cool to smoke now then when i started school 9 years ago) and the likelier that smoking in public places will be gently phased out, without all the americanized bs of a total ban.
If this doesnt make any sense, blame guiness.
It was what i was drinking at the time.
Assuming that this thread isnt going to be deleted within a matter of seconds, this is what im going to do with that godforsaken smokers thread.
This is from an extract from post of mine, althought admittedly i was drunk when i wrote it, its in my view, the last unanswered grown-up post:
People dont like passive smoke, and it is dangerous.
For this reason, regulations were put in place to stop this happening. most workplaces, all supermarkets and all public transports have banned smoking. It is the accepted norm that to have a smoke, you need to go outside, or to a designated smoking area.
But you (crescendo) want to go further than this. You want a complete, out and out ban on smoking in ALL public places.
Yet, because of the accepted norm of having non-smoking workplaces etc, your quarrell is not with these places. It is with the bars/clubs/pubs which are not non-smoking.
Your quarrel is with these places because you claim the smoke smells, gets in your clothes, and stings your eyes, as well as the problem of passive smoking. This isnt always avoidable because some of your friends smoke and for obvious reasons, you dont want to sit on your own.
For this reason, you want the governemnt to completely ban smoking in public, making it illegal to light up in any public area whatsoever. You expect anyone smoking in public areas to be arrested/fined/prosecuted because it is smells and theres a minute chance of cancer.
You see, the rest of it is plausible, but the last paragraph is just stupid. Think of how hard it is to implement these types of laws. My dads a copper, and he gets sick and tired of getting called to work at 10:30 at night to deal with the pubs spewing out dickheads. Imagine how he's going to feel if these big-brother laws happen.
Drunks are NOT going to stop smoking in a pub at night even if its against the law, no matter how much the barstaff protest. The result is going to be more trouble in bars as the barstaff have to call the police in, or "smokewatch" or whatevr the government has to bring in to implement these laws.
In this situation, the drunks will not go quietly into the night More trouble in the streets is NOT an acceptable side-effect of minutely lessening the chance of getting cancer.
But what if the barstaff dont do anything about a load of pissed pricks lighting up in their pub? I mean, you cant expect pubs to stay inside the law now, whats going to happen if your regulations are 'enforced'? Pubs and Clubs that will break the law, will probably shut down, such is the governents crappy strict regime that they will in no doubt use to appease the right-wingers, old-farts, and Crescendos of this country.
I suppose you could go all Thatcherites Against The Coalminers and mimick the "less coalmines, less problem!" motto, but thats a cop-out. OK so you could argue that closing down law-breaking pubs is a good thing, but you and i know the "shifty" ones are often amongst the better ones, and of course, if they close, where the fuck is everyone gonna go? To the pub? hell no, its been closed down. To the other pub? hell no, its full to the brim!
To the other other pub? nope! thats closed itself down, lack of attendance or something.
You see, 'dealing' with the problem of smoke in pubs by completely banning smoking in all public places, and making lighting up against the law, is not a good idea. It fucks things up. There were compromises we touched upon, but they were all shunned by you.
So what now?
Leave things as they have been for decades where only about 10% of the population properly hated smoking? or change them, to piss off the 15%ish of the population that smoke, the 10% who ONLY smoke in pubs/clubs and dont smoke regularly, and piss off the rest of the people who just liked to go into a pub/club and enjoy themselves, without all the hustle and bustle of people leaving to have cigarettes, and piss off the people who have to walk past all the drunks outside the pub, and piss off the people who have their local shut-down for not obeying the rules, and piss people off who's smoker friends have to disappear every 20mins-1hour.
You see, the problem will fix itself in time. The less acceptable smoking becomes (hell since its become infintely less cool to smoke now then when i started school 9 years ago) and the likelier that smoking in public places will be gently phased out, without all the americanized bs of a total ban.
If this doesnt make any sense, blame guiness.
It was what i was drinking at the time.
0
Comments
One mention of edibles and the thin thread which my patience is hanging by will snap................
Remember, this is a new thread, so let's all respect each other, and post each message according the the moderators rules. I'm just wondering where you got those figures from...
According to BBC news, the Office for National Statistics published a survey which suggested 87% of people would support a ban. Even I admit that 87% seems a bit high, but it can't be far off the actual figure.
You can read the rest of the report over here... http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/3041344.stm
did i say anything about the people supporting a ban? no
did you zone in on the part of the post which is quite quite obviously made up on the spot, and in which the figures really, really, really didnt matter? yes.
and furthermore, i was talking about the figures of people wanting a ban in pubs. how many is that? 54%. i remembered it without even looking at the bbc link, because ive seen it before.
my made-up figures do actually fit into that 46% that said "no". and also, with 87s and the 54s, as well as the poll on the thread that got closed, you have to take into account the non-smokers that really dont care, who are far more likely to vote to ban smoking.
right, so now weve cleared up the irrelevancies you decided to point out.... twice, with your amazing doublepost
All you had to say was 'BBC news' or 'A newspaper article' or 'A magazine' or whatever.
Jeez, lets not turn this thread into what the previous smoking thread turned out to be.
Peace
sometimes crescendo, i really do want to hurt you
i take it you'll be the one chain-smoking in the corner of a restraunt, eating fast-food which is killing the people on the next table
SHIT I MENTIONED FOOD
thats pretty harsh, think of the revenue that new-york would have lost :chin:
*imagines britain's biggest manufacturers moving to france*
wow, thatd really suck :chin:
But it would also make thousands of smokers quit, and it will make millions of non-smokers happy :chin:
(remember Black Hole Sun, you can find me in Bristol) :chin:
making me look like a stresshead like that :P
Sounds familiar.
Leave me alone to enjoy my pint and a smoke, hell I don't even have to be enjoying the pint, I could be in any public area after all I have as much right to be there as anyone.
As you said PNJ if someone doesn't like it they can move.
* banning smoking in all public places
What does get on my nerves is the mess it causes. People chucking fag ends on the floor, throwing them out car windows (because they don't want to get their precious ashtrays dirty), stubbing them out on the floor in pubs and shops.
It's disgusting, messy and inconsiderate.
The councils put bins out, with ashtrays on them for people, but all you get are fag ends on the floor around it because smokers (and people who chew gum) are too fucking bone idle to tidy up after themselves. It's on that basis that i believe a ban on smoking would be a great thing just to get rid of the litter involved.
And I hope they widen the on the spot fines for dropping them to all areas of the country. If you're going to smoke, don't rub it in everyone else's face.
p.s. to people who drive and smoke, if smoking is so great, why do you wind the window down???
to throw the fag out of the window, and so the smoke doesnt get in your eyes so that your veer off course and crash into a mound of fag-ends left by satans little helpers
ah, no mods can save you now, bucko
(if noon was at 22 past 9)
Now I'm not sure just exactly how much tax tobacco brings in to the government (I read it somewhere, but forgot the exact figures) but I think it's about 6.5 billion a year (ironically, the NHS works up a bill of about 1.5 billion on smoking related diseases) and by banning smoking in public places, a lot of people will quit or buy less tobacco, thus there would be less money coming in to the government.
Yeah I'm a smoker and no, I would not support the ban... and yes, I am planning to quit in a few weeks, but the point I'm making is that a pub is an adult atmosphere and we'd (meaning those of us who work in that industry) would lose customers, or have trouble off drunk people when you tell them that it's a no smoking area.
Ok, the survey Crecendo. It says that it's national statistics, but we need to look at how surveys like this are put together and how it was sampled. In all likelihood it was a voluntary survey, which means that most people taking it would have wanted a ban anyway.
I believe they should restrict smoking in eating areas and areas where children should be, but I'm not for restricting smoking in pubs because of a few factors. Firstly, it's a part of pub culture (apparently Wetherspoons wanted a ban on swearing too), it's like saying "I'm going to go to the pub, but don't want to be around drunk people", secondly, whilst I loath the tobacco industry, it brings in a lot of money to the government and thirdly it's very much people's own rights if they want to smoke in public, it's their own body.
Maybe a few non smoking pubs would be a better idea? Or smoking to be restricted at certain times of day (for example, in a traditional pub that sells food, in the day time).
I don't smoke around non smokers or people who don't like it by the way and I don't smoke in front of children either. I wish I'd never started.
thats a good idea
where the fuck is crescendo anyway? he was meant to be on this thread like 24 hours ago
Can I just point out something you wrote in another thread, concerning the food debate, which was this... Black Hole Sun, read what you wrote above, and think ...........
I'm not the one using the food debate as a reason why smoking SHOULD be banned in public places.
It is the smoking lobby who are using the food debate as a reason why smoking SHOULDN'T be banned in public places.
I don't know why the food debate ever got mentioned in the first place. It was the smoking lobby that first mentioned it, and all I have been doing throughout is rubbishing it.
Anyway, now that the food debate is hopefully over (in everyone's except MOK's mind), perhaps we can discuss the other points raised that hold a little more validity.
This thread is all about smoking. It's been made fairly clear at the beginning of this thread that it will be closed if we don't stick to the subject. So, move on.
Do you have anything to offer the debate?
neither am i. so why bring it up in a conversation with me? why bring it up at all? Crescendo you just went to another forum, picked out the only quote about fast food and used it as an argument, why? this thread was meant to be starting from scratch i dont want to be making a fucking "Smoking In Public Places: The Fagends Strike Back" thread if you and MOK get this one closed as well.
in the end, your still desperately trying to say that this stupid food debate is somehow important to us/anyone. it isnt. let it go.
now, can you finally just try and point out why the stuff i mentioned in my first post here is an unreasonable or obsolete side effect of a complete government ban on smoking in public places, because so far youve avoided it like the plague.
Which clearly means that with the help of the moderators, you managed to weave yourself out of that awkward situation that you got yourself into. Well done MOK :thumb:
Anyway, no more mention of 'food' and 'smoking' together from now on, or else one of us will get banned.
Your next point was as follows: Car exhausts only run outside in the open air, and so will smoking if is ban is put into effect. If car exhausts started running in public places, then by all means, we should ban this
Also, can you imagine this country if there were no cars and other means of transport that rely on fuel??? .............. Nope, neither could I.
On the other hand, can you imagine this country if smoking was banned in public places??? ................ I can, it will be similar to many American states and other countries all over the world right now.
Furthermore, if a human is sitting in a smokey pub, and another human is standing on the pavement of a busy road, which one is subject to the most pollution, which one is feeling more uncomfortable (due to the smoke), which one will go home smelling the most, and which one's lungs are at a greater risk???
I think you know my answer to some of the above questions, but we need evidence for others.
Your opinions please..........