Midsummer madness
Saturday, August 14, 2010 Interesting post on Iain Dale's Diary concerning cigarette bins in London. Apparently Westminster Council is taking the taxi firm Addison Lee to court because it's they who are apparently responsible for many of the cigarette bins you see outside pubs and clubs in central London.
A year ago, having seen a similar bin on the wall of a pub near the Forest office in Soho, I enquired about the cost of using cigarette bins outside pubs to promote the Save Our Pubs & Clubs campaign. I didn't follow through with it but I rather wish we had. Forest versus Westminster Council has a rather nice ring to it!
Meanwhile it shows what we're up against. As Iain implies, Addison Lee should be congratulated not prosecuted for paying to provide cigarette bins in the capital. The truth is, cigarette bins are unpopular with some bureaucrats (and politicians) because they "normalise" smoking.
I guess too that if cigarette bins are removed from public buildings it also makes it harder for smokers to dispose of their butts and they therefore become an easy target for fines when they drop their butts on the ground.
Alternatively, it gives anti-smoking campaigners an excuse to call for a ban on smoking outside pubs and clubs because of the litter.
Read Iain's post HERE. The London Evening Standard has the story HERE.
Reader Comments (8)
Hmmm,
It's not like they even cause much signage polution, they are not exactly big.
It seems on the face of it a little petty. I suppose there could be a neutral reason for it but I doubt it.
They're going to find it difficult to justify imposing fines for discarding butts now. Anyone served with one outside a pub should just go all the way to court and quote this ruling.
Its amazing in these desperate times in the middle of a deep recession with people loosing their jobs/houses and in a deep depression that the war on smokers continues regardless, treating us as if we were the ones that brought down the economy or desperate criminals.
If a Westminster jobsworth approached me for stubbing out my butt I would give him a fictitous name and address and if that didnt satisfy him I'd tell him to go fuck himself.
... now what did I say about criminalisation .... ooops - better go and lie down.
A sense of perspective, please. This appears to be more about the council not getting any rake off from advertising than anti smoking or litter. Sure, the antis will never lose an opportunity to try and cash in, but this doesn't appear to be the main issue here. Avoid the paranoia or we just become laughable.
Ann: I've beaten you to it. I was approached by a council wallah acting on behalf of NHS Ealing wanting to question about smoking. I told him to f**k off before I did something with the fag that he wouldn't like. He did. Strong people, our opponents. I'm wholly intolerant to antis. I wouldn't give them the dirt from under my fingernails.
I do not know whether or not what I am going to say makes sense.
I have two 'personas' - one is Juncan and the other is xxxxxx.
My Juncian persona is reasonable and sensible; my xxxxx persona is an avid anti-smokers, As xxxx I take great delight in EXAGGERATING smoking harm. Like, "Tobacco smoke is wafting around everywhere in the atmosphere. Why should I have to breathe it? Even in my own house, I am not safe. The Surgeon General of the USA said that there is no safe level of second hand smoke, and who am I to argue with him? He is an eminent Surgeon".
It seems to me that I can be a reasonable person who is against the smoking ban, and, at the same time, be an unreasonable person who is for the ban. If one continuously bombards the reasonable majority with the nonsensical propaganda spouted by the likes of ASH and co, and exaggerates it and takes it to its logical conclusion, then reasonable people who are non-smokers (and even some antis perhaps!) might just begin to object.
If I may say in passing - I remember in the 1950s that there was a big 'push' by the Government to eradicate Tuberculosis. Everyone was scanned. The probability was that 99.9% of the people were clear, but the 0.01% were caught in time. I think that that 'push' was a really good thing. What we have now with the smoking ban is THE OPPOSITE of that 'push'. There is an assumption everyone COULD be affected by possible harm when the fact is that the evidence is that HARDLY ANYONE will be affected.This is the total opposite of the Tuberculosis scan.
Did anyone catch the debate about an older woman fined £50 for dropping a cig end on R2 Jeremy Vine show at lunchtime? The tone of many of the comments was beyond belief. Made me want to be anything but British.
@ Rose W.
Censorship. Rose. Censorship.