Blimey, this thread is almost as long as the 'NTL 10Mb' thread
...and the person who started the whole thing has been banned since it was created, so can't see what's being said!
My views are that I am fully aware that inhaling cigarette smoke is dangerous to one's health, whether the smoke is inhaled passively or otherwise (what's the opposite to passive smoking?
Aggressive smoking..?!?). I have seen the statistics and have read reports linking passive smoking to fatal diseases. However, I am struggling to see why such a ban was deemed necessary. Like
Xaccers said earlier on, I think this proposed ban would be a bad thing because it is an infringement on civil liberties. I really, really don't like being told what I can and can not do. I like having the freedom of choice, as a sane adult, to do what I like where I like.
Saying that, I admit I like the idea of living in a civilised society, and I live by the laws that are imposed. So, if the Government were really serious about this, then I'd like to see it banned in private as well as public places, and I'd like to see people arrested for possessing cigarettes. If such a law were enforced then I would accept that smoking in public places be outlawed. This, alas, isn't realistic so smoking will remain legal.
Despite smoking remaining legal, and without any laws currently in place governing such a thing, smoking is not allowed in my local cinema, nor my local library, nor the local sports centre, nor even in my local hospital. Despite there being no law forbidding this (I understand the
Public Places Charter is only voluntary), I've yet to see anyone light-up in any of these places - there's an acceptance that smoking in these places is not allowed, and this rule is always stuck to. There is no law that prevents someone from running a cinema where smoking is permitted if they wanted to do so, but I don't honestly think we'll see such a thing where I live.
Focusing on pubs, which is what this thread is all about after all... Currently, I have a choice about where to go and what to do, so I am happy. When my wife and I take our son to eat at one of our local pubs, we can go to the Manor Farm, which has a very large non-smoking area (the main bar) plus a very large non-smoking restaurant, and all the smokers are confined to a smaller room at the back of the pub where they don't cause any harm to anoyone but themselves (I've noticed that the smokers even take their empties back to the bar, so the bar staff aren't inconvenienced/harmed by their smoke!). Alternatively, we can go to the Abbey Meads pub where smoking is again only allowed in a small section of the pub - it's not quite as well managed as the Manor Farm, so we tend to go there less often unless we want to eat outside. Finally, there's the Toby Carvery... fully non-smoking wherever you sit (although you can probably smoke outside).
To put this in perspective, that's 3 pubs that serve food within a ½-mile radius of our house, where we confidently feel that the health of our son is not being compromised by passive smoking. There are other pubs we could go to if we wanted to, but we always decide not to, because of the smokey environment. We have a choice, and we exercise that choice when we go to a particular pub instead of another pub. Similarly, smokers currently have a choice. They can go to the Manor Farm pub - and they do - provided they don't mind being segregated - and apparently they don't mind it. Otherwise, they can go to the Abbey Meads pub and again can drink and smoke at the same time (ok, physically that's not possible, but you get my meaning). Otherwise, they can go to the pub within the Toby Carvery and can sit outside in the garden whenever they want a cigarette. Currently, the smokers exercise their choice when they decide where they want to smoke.
Now, if this bill became law, it is possible that some of the pubs my family and I currently frequent will cease serving food, so we will no longer have such a varied choice over where to eat
Alternatively, they will prevent people from smoking where they are currently allowed to do so, and that results in the smokers having less choice, even though they are not affecting me nor my family as much as some people are suggesting.
By the way, there's a good article in
Tuesday's Guardian comparing the dangers of passive smoking to air pollution, and highlighting the fact that air pollution kills many, many times more people per year than passive smoking, yet is still being overlooked.