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Originally Posted by orangebird
None of what you've listed above Chris will affect the trade/customers you may or may not attract. The smoking ban does. Bloody hell, has everyone had a labotomy today?
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Maybe not, but I think to draw a distinction between rules that affect who comes through your front door and rules that do not is entirely artificial, and if I may say so, appears to feature in your argument only because it suits *your* agenda.
The only way in which you can discuss the law as it affects business is to look at all of it, and look at how it affects the whole of the business. Footfall is one small part of an overall business. Minimum wage, for example, affects profit margins. Is this unimportant?
Claire's point (I think), and mine, is that you cannot separate laws on smoking from any other law that affects a business. If you consider smoking legislation to be bullying the proprietor, you must consider all other business law to be bullying the proprietor also. And that undermines your suggestion that a landlord might give up the pub trade and go and find a business where he won't get bullied. No such business exists.