Fairer smoking laws, please
Tuesday, March 23, 2010 Last week I had a rather bizarre conversation with Paul Dalgleish, a Carlisle based taxi driver. Three weeks ago Paul was fined the maximum £200 for having a cigarette in his cab. He was also ordered to pay £75 costs and a £15 "victim surcharge".
Paul has to take the blame for the size of his fine because he ignored the original fixed penalty notice, which would have cost him £25, and he did the same when the fine doubled to £50. I understand he also ignored two earlier warning letters for smoking in his cab.
I do have some sympathy for him, though, because this is yet another example of Britain's appallingly restrictive smoking laws. As Paul told his local paper in two separate reports:
“I was between jobs when it happened ... I would never have smoked if I’d had someone in my cab but I was on my own with the window down.
“I don’t understand the £15 victim surcharge either. Who is supposed to be the victim? There was nobody else there ... I just want to see some common sense.”
Full story HERE.
I don't want to say too much at this point because Paul is due back in court at the end of the month. He tells me he didn't receive the summons to appear in court when he was fined £200 so the fine has been quashed (apparently) and his case will be heard again on March 29.
In the meantime Paul - who until very recently smoked 40 cigarettes a day - has been told by the taxi licensing officer that he cannot use an electronic cigarette in his cab in case customers think it's a real cigarette and complain.
He has also been advised not to wear a campaign t-shirt because it could be classed as "offensive clothing".
All I can say is, people in Carlisle must be easily offended because this is what it says on Paul's t-shirt:
SUPPORT TAXI DAGGY
FAIR SMOKING LAWS PLEASE
Meanwhile he is allowed to wear his replica West Ham shirt which (if you're a Millwall fan) could be considered equally "offensive" (although you'd have to be a complete moron to be offended).
I'm in a quandary. I would love to stand shoulder to shoulder with Paul, publicising Britain's "unfair" smoking laws.
But - and I have told him this - I am concerned that if we throw our weight behind him and alienate the licensing officer, we could put Paul's livelihood at risk, and I am loathe to do that.
It's one thing to stand up for fairer smoking laws ... it's quite another to lose your job in the process.
So, Paul and I have agreed not to make a song and dance about it. Instead we will review the situation after his court appearance on March 29.
I have also suggested that he has a quiet word with the licensing officer about the legality of using e-cigarettes in the workplace. Perhaps our friends in the vapour world would like to comment and offer examples of service industries that do allow employees to use e-cigarettes while they are working.
(Could someone post a link to this thread on one of the e-cigarette forums? It would be useful to get some information from the horse's mouth.)
I'll keep you posted.
Reader Comments (22)
Simon, you may want to look at this website. It is run by James Dunworth and he can be reached on support@ecigarettedirect.co.uk
I also have James' telephone number too if required.
http://www.ecigarettedirect.co.uk/index-test
Thanks for pointing me towards this, David!
It's currently legal to smoke the electronic cigarette indoors and outdoors. For example, we recently supplied the Welsh National Opera with NJOY kits so that they could perform an opera about a cigarette factory in Swansea. (In Wales cigarettes are even banned on stage!) You can see the pictures here: http://www.ecigarettedirect.co.uk/ashtray-blog/2010/03/welsh-national-opera-turns-to-electronic-cigarette.html
The devices contain nicotine in a propylene glycol solution. Propylene glycol has also been used to sterilise the air in children's wards in hospitals - so it's difficult to argue that there is a danger of passive smoking (although ASH US try.)
The e-cigarette is legal to smoke in pubs, and we use it in our local!
For god's sake! ......... "alienate the licensing officer" ????
He's a bloody council official that has to obey the regulations as in the statute! He is not God(though he may indeed think so).
A simple request to the Council is all it takes to find out what this Council's regulations are ... and their guidelines although one must remeber that they are entirely different. Guidelines are simply that 'a guide', regulations are not.
Standing off officialdom is NOT the way to go. Just find the regulations, learn them and then confront this 'officer'. Do it politely and calmly and at all times quote the regulations and nothing more. lf all the officials are of the same l've encountered this one probably does not fully know them.
He has to obey them as much as you do. lf he doesn't ... report him or sue the Council.
l've not lost against one yet!
Personally, I don't understand why smokers are turning to e-cigs. Isn't that just rolling over and doing what we are told and being coerced into NRT? Real cigs or no cigs for me - sorry James. I don't want the nicotine. I want the tobacco.
If smokers begin to accept that they are less socially offensive if they smoke e-cigs then we will never win. The move towards Tobacco eradication will be hastened and smokers will be villified even more for not taking up e-cig smoking. We have the right to be socially accepted as tobacco smokers because what we do does not have to harm or irritate anyone else if we had some consideration and ventilation to the required standard.
Thank you Pat Nurse, I could not have put it better. Vaping instead of smoking is nothing less than capitulation. Those who wish to vape are, of course, free to do so or should be. I predict that the e-cig will be banned in it's current form as it looks too much like a cigarette, but vapers can alter the appearance of their chosen form of nicotine delivery. Tobacco consumers on the other hand have had every avenue, including smokeless tobacco, closed down by the anti tobacco extremists. Defend yourself. Do not practice appeasement, there isn't any. For every inch you give the antis want a foot.
Actually, Heretic, I think you said it better than me:)
My entirely person view it is a purely a matter of choice. Most of them are manufactured in China, hardly the most anti smoking country in the world.
Alas I have lost mine but I found it useful on trains and planes where you could not smoke. As long as the government don't use them as a tool of coercion I take the live and let live attitude.
Pat Nurse wrote: Personally, I don't understand why smokers are turning to e-cigs. Isn't that just rolling over and doing what we are told and being coerced into NRT?
For crying out loud. Well, in my case (and I can probably speak for Leg-iron and quite a few other people as well), I only use e-cigs when I'm inside a pub. The rest of the time I smoke real cigarettes. And I have absolutely no intention of giving up the real thing.
The point of using e-cigs in pubs is that it's quite simply, for me, better than nothing. That's the only reason. For the past 3 years I haven't enjoyed a single pint inside a pub. With e-cigs I can enjoy it again. Just about.
Using e-cigs this way is no more "rolling over and doing what you're told" than complying with this filthy law and not smoking in a pub. Which is presumably what you do, if you ever go into a pub.
Let me repeat. I have absolutely no intention of giving up smoking. But where I can't, I'll use an e-cig. Other people may want to give up smoking, and some of them use e-cigs to do so, and use e-cigs exclusively thereafter. That's their choice. If people want to give up smoking, that's their choice too. Or it used to be until the state started trying to force people to give up.
This thread is not about the pros and cons of e-cigs. We had that debate HERE. This thread is (I think) about a taxi driver who has been fined for smoking in his cab and what we can do to help him get around his "problem" without jeopardising his job.
For someone in Paul Carlisle's position, an e-cigarette would appear to offer a useful alternative to smoking - if he is allowed to use it while driving or sitting in his vehicle.
I thought we might be able to help him by building up a file of information concerning other employers who allow their employees to use e-cigs at work.
Are Taxis allowed to have tinted windows? If they are, it could be worth the investment. Even with prompt payment, £25 per smoke or vape is rather expensive for a series of victimless crimes.
It's one thing to stand up for fairer smoking laws ... it's quite another to lose your job in the process.
Unintended irony perhaps - many 1000s HAVE lost their jobs and businesses because they didn't stand up.....
Most council workers are not the brightest and have no flair or initiative. The council legally have no right to ban him smoking his E Cig in his cab and they are dubious on his choice of T Shirt.
Simon... it's Paul Dalgeish not Carlisle. :)
Having looked at various applications for being a taxi driver the only reference to how one's s appearance should be is 'clean and tidy'.
Clearly this Carlisle Licensing Officer is over-stepping his authority .... maybe he's a member of ASH????
... and then l spell it wrong! hah!
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Is this guy taking the piss?!
I have an ecig. It is called 'Screwdriver'. It was quite expensive at about £70, but I understand that it is a good make.
It looks nothing like a cigarette. In fact, it looks like a screwdriver, which is presumably why it is called 'screwdriver'!
To describe it -
Imagine an ordinary screwdriver (not a phillips) 15 cm long. Imagine that half of it is handle and the other half is the metal part. Now stick a small pipe (pipe for smoking) mouthpiece on the end of the metal bit and you have got it.It is made in silvery, shiny chrome with a black mouthpiece. It is nicely rounded in shape and seems to be well engineered.
As I say, it looks nothing like a cigarette.
I have only used it once to try it out and to see how long one 'fill' (with the concentrated nicotine extract) would last. I did not much like the taste of the vapour - a bit sweet - but it does have the feel of cig smoke to some extent.
I decided to get one before the zealots find a way to ban them.
Mr Clark! How dare you use the word 'guy'? Do you not know that the regulations (to be published after the Equalities Act has been passed) will almost certainly ban all reference to gender. You will have to use the phrase 'guy and doll (or dame)', or better still 'dame (or doll) and guy'.
No sexism on this site!
Hi Simon. My understanding is that there are currently no laws against vaping or vapour, smokefree laws do not apply because there is no combustion.
The MHRA/Dept of Health are working on prohibition of recreational nicotine with the exception of tobacco but I believe that will only apply to sales - if you can get it you can vape it.
Here's a bit more information from an ecig trader -
The introduction of the UK smoking ban introduced in The Health Act 2006, chapter 28, part 1, chapter 1, section 1, paragraph 2 states:
"smoking" refers to smoking tobacco or anything which contains tobacco, or smoking any other substance; and smoking includes being in possession of lit tobacco or of anything lit which contains tobacco, or being in possession of any other lit substance in a form in which it could be smoked.
To be fair, Daggy is clearly an inbred retard and deserves everything he gets.
I've been smoking Gamucci Micro for a more than a year now and I can confirm that they will not kill you and will not cause horns to grow out of your head. Joking aside, what these non-smoking guys want? We smokers gave in so much: can't smoke indoors, can't smoke on TV, can't smoke e-cigs. This no-smoke trend has to stop somewhere.