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Originally Posted by RizzyKing
Yeah but by that measure Chris you should ban alcohol as well then as bar staff are routinely exposed to abuse and aggresion due to drunken customers. I am not saying smoking is a good thing i am not suggesting anyone should have to endure it if they don't want to. What i am saying is that it is still legal to purchase tobacco in the UK in fact the government needs the revenue so unless they have the balls to make it illegal and stop taking money from it they have no right to restrict it in the way they did. Also most of the bar staff i know smoke and so i doubt it would have been hard to organise that side of it either.
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Bar staff have the right not to be abused at work. Drunk punters can and do get dragged through the courts because it's already illegal for punters to expose the bar staff to aggression. Actually the Licensee could wind up in court as well, as it's his responsibility to keep order on his premises. Just as it is now his responsibility to ensure his staff are not exposed to smoke.
I don't think it follows that tobacco being legal means there is no grounds for strict controls on it. Alcohol, for example, is already a lot more restricted than tobacco in where and when you can buy and consume it.
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As far as i am concerned this was an exercise by the government to see how far it could go to restrict personal activity and smoking won't be the last thing they hit. Personally i don't drink alcohol but i routinely have to put up with drunks being abusive and throwing up on my road not to mention the broken glasses that litter the town centre after a weekend if we want we all have a reason to want something restricted\banned doesn't mean it should be or that we should actively pursue that end. I have also loved the "selfish" argument that non smoker's put up as they were thinking purely of themselves when they called for it to be banned pot calling the kettle methinks.
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I don't believe any of the main political parties in the UK have an agenda that goes something like, "Bwuhahahahaaaaaa ... let's see how many personal freedoms we can remove this week!" so I'm really not buying in to your idea that the smoking ban was Labour's experiment in seeing how far they can cow the populace.
And as I've already said, the drunken activity you describe is *already* illegal. Anyone doing any of the things you mention can be prosecuted for any of a whole range of offences.