Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Smoking Ban.

A website here blowing all those ASH and government (same organisation really) anti-smoking ‘facts’ out of the water. Here’s an interesting bit about the effect of the ban on our pubs:
The financial analysts Goldman Sachs - hardly a "pro smoking organisation'' - recently stated that the smoking ban has reduced average pub profits by 10% . Scottish & Newcastle, the UK's largest brewery estimated a 8% fall in beer sales in January and since then beers sales in the UK have fallen to their lowest level since the Great Depression. But most devastating to the ASH version of events are the statistics for pub closures which accelerated dramatically in 2007. The trade journal The Morning Advertiser blamed this squarely on "the savage impact of the smoking ban and spiralling costs" and the figures require little comment:
2005: 2 a week
2006: 4 a week
2007: 27 a week
Those non-smokers who were, apparently, driven from pubs by all those nasty smokers, better hurry and get back before the pubs are all gone.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I don't smoke and I rarely visit the pub these days.

The smoking ban hasn't changed how often I visit the pub. We all do it less now because a night in the pub costs too much. £3 a pint when you can buy 6 bottles for that in Tesco. That's what is killing the pub.

The Gov has turned the pub into a luxury item, for occasional employment only.

They need to drop tax and duty inside pubs and increase it for supermarkets.

Anonymous said...

I don't get it. If people have trouble with other people smoking, why do they go there? That's like going to a rock concert for tranquillity. It can be a passive hazard, it's not an active threat. You can avoid the risks of smoking.

Maybe they should ban alcohol from pubs as well because it does discriminate muslims and alcoholics that would also like to visit a pub.

But then, it might cause global warming so we should ban it everywhere... ;-)

Anonymous said...

As a non smoker I miss the smoking in pubs (ambiance, covered up smell of armpits and crotch etc) and I fear for the industry. On a road that used to sport ten pubs and was a favourite crawl for students, only 5 remain open and even the smaller ones never look busy.

Anonymous said...

because of the mentally challenging boggling of restaurant food, even in smoke friendly states dining places are closing.

in nyc bars are always packed.

the cigar bar in sf is packed.

if you need to drink in a public area maybe to save some money and feed your addiction, go to the window of your house facing the street, put on your bathrobe, pour a tall one, light up a slim, and then start saying stuff like "kids these days, liberty or dog races, your pope is in on it too lady. i'll tie your ovaries for a tuppence, like st george and his iron cross, that's right, tha'z wha i says zzzzzzzzz urp." etc. you might become town loony or hero with this excercise!

(worked for me.)

Anonymous said...

Good article.

The only way the bigots could get the law in was through lies. Shame on the MPs who did no research and believed them (the Health Act was debated for a paltry 3 hours).

Everything ASH have said on the matter has been thoroughly debunked over and over, which is why they consistently refuse public debate. Quite simply, their arguments would have no chance whatsoever of standing up under scrutiny and they know it.

I get very angry about the ban, even though I almost never use pubs. What very much worries me is how they are using the same methods to inflict further totalitarian bans on us.

http://dickpuddlecote.blogspot.com/2008/12/bad-week-for-righteous.html