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Originally Posted by ian@huth
If pubs were given the choice as to whether they are smoking or no smoking establishments then the landlord/owner will take a commercial decision as to which it should be. If they choose to be smoking allowed pubs then surely that tells you something. It means that the majority of customers want to be able to smoke there and the landlord/owner thinks that he will lose more money if he chooses to ban smoking than if he is to allow smoking.
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Since when is making money more important than health? I am sure the landlord would make more money if he watered his drinks down with toilet water but that doesn't make it ok does it!
Pub by the way, is short for public house. Therefore the landlord is duty bound to provide for the public, and to work in the interests of the health of the public. It is not just down to the landlord what he does on his premises, as a publican he has to consider health and safety issues.
As I have said before, freedom of choice is not what is at stake here. Chris T made a very good point when he said that were tobacco to be discovered today, it would be banned. It is a high risk substance. Just because it is currently legal to smoke, doesn't take away from this point. Freedom of choice is what allows gay and straight bars to exist, or live music and jukebox pubs to exist.
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Originally Posted by ian@huth
Health is important but smoking is not the only health issue where pubs are concerned. Just look at any hospital A&E department on Friday and Saturday night and you will find it is their busiest time of the week. It is the effects of alcohol that causes most of this increase in patients, not smoking, and some of those patients may not have had a single drink, just suffered because of the ones that have.
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The effects of smoking are not usually ones that result in you being taken to casualty, that's all. And the patients you are talking about probably need stitches cos they have been bottled, or similar. The victims of smoking are probably, (awfully and tragically) over on the terminal ward, or in a hospice, dying of cancer. It's a terrible state of affairs.