Would you want to be married to this man?
Monday, February 16, 2009 The following exchange took place last week following an item in a local newspaper about the decline of the British pub. The first email was written (by a reader of Taking Liberties) to a prominent Labour councillor. The second is his insufferably smug response:
Dear Councillor,
Like you, I agree that the decline in community pubs is a national tragedy which will change the fabric of our country.
I have not been able to find the recommendations you refer to, but I do hope they include an amendment to the Smoking Ban which is surely the biggest threat to pubs. Non-smokers have not thronged to enjoy the smoke-free atmosphere as had been predicted, but smokers are staying away from pubs in droves. Why pay more to drink alcohol in a place where you have to stand outside in the cold to smoke, when you can have a drink and a cigarette/cigar/pipe in comfort at home?
I agree 100% with freedom of choice – non-smokers should of course have a choice of smoke-free pubs to visit if they so wish, just as smokers should have the right to visit a pub where smoking is allowed. I believe utmost pressure needs to be put on this or the next Government to allow a mixture of smoking and non-smoking venues, if there is any chance of British pubs surviving.
Incidentally, I also resigned my long-held Labour Party membership over the same issue, and I suspect there were many active, lifelong LP supporters like me who did the same.
The next day came this response:
Morning ... Nice to hear from you.
If you have access to a PC just search for “All Party Parliamentary Beer Group Community Pub Inquiry” and you should find it – enjoy the read.
I do not hold your view that the smoking ban is having the effect it did when it was first introduced. I and many others are pleased that after a night out I do not go home stinking of other peoples smoke. Many people have given up or have radically cut down and in our local the effect on customer footfall has been marginal with much being made up by people now coming out for a drink because of the absence of smoke.
It’s a contentious issue with deeply entrenched views. I know because my wife smokes and she has always complained about the cold and has the heating on maximum at home. However since the smoking ban there has been a remarkable turn round in her resilience to extreme weather. Remarkably she can now stand outside talking with her chums for ages, in all weathers, with only a coat and a cigarette to keep her warm. I expect when we are overwhelmed by a global winter I will be the first to go and she will hang on until the last cigarette has been extinguished.
Everyone leaves a political party for different reasons, some seek excuses others have them thrust upon them. Personally I have a list of reasons as long as your arm including the nuclear issue, global warming, the poor, starving, social injustice etc, etc. I suppose any of them would do but the issue of smoking or not is not on my radar in any case I prefer to hold and fight my ground not disappear quietly into the night.
I have withheld the councillor's name - for now - but the tone is disturbingly familiar. In this case it even extends to his wife! Dear God, would you want to be married to this man (let alone vote for him)?!
The other point - which I will return to - is the fact that many politicians are wringing their hands at the difficulties faced by community pubs and working men's clubs, yet very few will accept that the smoking ban is a factor (significant or otherwise).
This is something we hope to address when we launch our Save Our Pubs & Clubs coalition.
Reader Comments (17)
What an oaf/moran/dogmatic pig to write such a weasel worded bureaucratic reply to any constituent.
Its like the global warming in that all those labour blind idiots in power find it safer to stick to the politically correct, carbon footprint, health and safety mantra, rather than stick their necks out and maybe disturb the non smokers who are in the majority.
All these pc labour wankers are only interested in votes.
We need a radical shake up of new blood and people with balls!
It will happen, but hopefully sooner rather than later for us older people, as we are the most affected by this cursed ban.
Great that your launching a Save our Pubs campaign and wish you the best of luck.
He doesn't address the question. If there was a choice of smoking and non-smoking pubs, he wouldn't go home stinking of smoke. Why do these people think every pub should suit their tastes? I don't like loud music but I don't expect every pub to play music quietly or not at all.
I don't see why the Councillor is arguing the point that the smoking ban has had no effect on the loss of pubs.
ASH on at least two occassions have admitted that the smoking ban is responsible for at least 50% of pub closures. Firstly in a radio discussion on the 22/7/08 in which I contributed, and in a letter to the Financial Times, written by Martin Dockrell, ASH's Head Of Policy Research on 17/1/09 and I quote.
"AC Nielsen, the market research group, has reported that beer sales from pubs fell in 2007 and that around half the decline could be ascribed to the anti-smoking law."
Martin Dockrell,
Director of Policy Research,
Ash,
London E1, UK
http://www.forces.org/Multimedia_Portal/index.php?selection=268
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/cc4256d2-e436-11dd-8274-0000779fd2ac.html
I should of added this, although pub closures are running at 6 a day not 6 a month:
"If that translates as 50 per cent of closures then the legislation can be credited with causing just six pubs a month to close."
Did anyone else notice that Mr Smug didn't even mention health?
All he seems to be concerned about is the smell.
On this, he is remarkably in tune with the vast majority of people I have read in blogs & newspapers.
It is only the monumentally zealous anti-smokers that screech on about the mythical harm that SHS "causes".
The answer is, was, and always will be, good ventilation.
Remove the smoke and you remove the objections to it. It really is just a matter of comfort.
Simples.
Or they could try washing their clothes... works every time for me.
Ann, I agree with you about the passage of time. Now in my seventies I would like, before I die, to stroll out again to a local, sit in sight of its log fire and enjoy two or three pints, with a smoke. I would say that's a reasonable wish.
Jon has it bang on. If there were venues for smokers, he wouldn't smell of smoke. It's misdirection as a result of confirmation bias.
The misdirection upon misdirection is in assuming there must be either a blanket ban or none at all.
Martin Dockrell is very clever with his language when dealing with this issue. He comes out with sentences like "no-one wants to go back to smokey pubs" as if that is the only one that would be allowed if the law was amended.
There are different kinds of business in every other industry. Enough to satisfy all tastes, yet if we follow ASH's thinking and apply it to shops for example, it would mean that all would be M&S or there would be no shops at all.
If you don't want to buy clothes ... tough.
Sorry in advance!
He's just a wanker, and there is nothing we can do about it.
Further to Colin's point, I recently changed my car. Hanging from the rear view mirror was a cardboard 'air freshener' disc, courtesy of the NHS, that stated "it's not the smell that damages your children..."
As an alternative to this year's Christmas card, what about a FOREST 'disc' (in the shape of those air freshener 'trees') with something to the effect that you don't have to come home smelling like an ashtray...
Just a thought
I remember a similar encounter with a local councillor about two years before the ban. An historic community venue for live acts was in a very sad and dangerous state of disrepair. Tax payers' money was used to refurbish it. The local council announced it would be non-smoking to protect children who would use it for school workshops the day after an evening event.
I pointed out to the councillor that my tax money had also been used along with other smokers and our needs should have been taken into account. Plans should have included good ventilation and a designated smoking area, for example. I also gave him lots of information from Forest on the exagerated passive smoking issue.
His response was that only Forest was saying that passive smoking was not dangerous because it is a tobacco funded organisation; and if I was so addicted to fags that I couldn't do without one for an evening then that was no-one else's reponsibility but my own. He just didn't get that choice and fairness was the issue, not smoking.
I think there are many good words above to describe this particular nasty anti. On a positive note, his party, Labour, was voted out of local control at the last local election for the first time in living memory.
The knowledge that exists about chemicals that create smells is obviously lacking in the NHS, which is not a surprise, but shameful in that many of the same minute chemical traces are found in smoke and are indentified by the same people as being carcinogenic and especially damaging to children.
I think Forest should do some research on this subject and make this clear to the media, if you haven't already. The massive introduction of air fresheners over the last few decades, as smoking has dropped, could well be behind the accelerating rise in asthma, given that many airfresheners, scented candles etc, contain irritants that far outway their counterparts in smoke, but, of course, these are well within the 'allowed' volumes, so are safe, but ETS is not???! Again the public should be made aware of this side of the con by the Pharmaceuticals.
I like many more do not do Pubs /Restaurants and Cafes anymore Mr. Councillor Sir !,because of the Ban and am very ,very angry about it ! to take away a pleasure I have enjoyed for some 38 years, a Pint or Coffee with a Smoke .
You seem to take this very lightly but believe you me The Labour Party will never be forgiven for this such is my anger ,
How would you like someone to deprive you of something you have enjoyed so long ? you being a non smoker obviously do not understand ?
I rarely socialise these days but will not be bullied into giving up Smoking that would be my decision ,but I can tell you something ,I am so stressed out because of the Ban that I like others ,are actually Smoking more ?
The sooner New Labour are out of Governing ,the better !
What a way to treat your own wife.
What a creep.
Hang about, If his wife smokes, doesn't he stink of smoke before he gets to the pub ?
The Councillor says: "Everyone leaves a political party for different reasons, some seek excuses others have them thrust upon them. Personally I have a list of reasons as long as your arm including the nuclear issue, global warming, the poor, starving, social injustice etc, etc. I suppose any of them would do but the issue of smoking or not is not on my radar in any case I prefer to hold and fight my ground not disappear quietly into the night."
Well, doesn't the smoking ban come under the heading of Social Injustice? Or like many other councillors, does he have no understanding whatsoever for the spin that he spouts?
I bet his wife stands outside to have a fag partly to avoid him for most of the evening. She probably finds the other smokers better company.
Why, oh why, can't we have pubs for smokers and pubs for non-smokers? If there was a choice then everyone would be happy and we wouldn't have to mix with such dull individuals.
I went into a pub briefly on Saturday for the first time this year. I stayed just long enough to gulp down one drink as quickly as I could. It was a horrible santised place so I rushed home as quick as I could to relax and have a smoke and drink together. I often wish I had a time machine and we could go back to the old days when pubs were friendly places and not stinking to high heaven of chips and other awful pub grub.