I am not going to bang on about smoking this time. The Fat Bigot has already posted an opinion I agree with absolutely, and Frank Davis reveals another antismoker scam.
Most restaurants were non-smoking or restricted-smoking before the ban and there's a reason for that. Smokers often like a smoke after a meal. We, just like non-smokers, don't generally like smoke billowing around during a meal. So it's no hardship to have a non-smoking restaurant or to have an area smokers can sit in after the meal, away from the still-eating people, for that after-nosh smoke.
Nobody can smoke and eat at the same time anyway. If you can do that, you have too many holes in your face and you'd better start saving for surgery.
Pubs are different. I can't hold chopsticks or a fork in one hand and a cigarette in the other. I don't enjoy a combination of smoke and Hoi Sin. With a good malt whisky in one hand and a cigarette in the other, I am content.
7 comments:
LI,
Have you seen John Brignell's Numberwatch for June? There's something in it for all of us, I'd say:
http://numberwatch.co.uk/2010%20June.htm
Please do not presume to speak for all smokers. I don't mind smoke billowing around me as I eat. I smoke between courses and don't want to be bothered moving to another room. Are you saying that any amendment of the smoking ban should exclude rooms where eating and smoking is permitted?
Anon#1 - I haven't seen that before. I'll have to add the site to my reading list.
Anon#2 - please don't attribute opinions I don't have to me.
Generally, smokers tend to prefer to eat without smoke, and smoke afterwards. Some, like yourself, like a smoke between courses. I don't speak for all smokers, I can only base these posts on my own observations.
I don't want any amendment of the smoking ban. I want it completely gone. Private businesses should be free to choose what they allow or don't allow on their premises.
So if a restaurant wants to be completely smokeless, no problem. If they want smoking and nonsmoking areas, no problem. If they want an ashtray on every table, no problem. Then we can all choose which restaurant format we prefer.
They will all have customers although I suspect the ones that have both smoking and non-smoking sections will do better by far. Sometimes non-smokers are friends with smokers, even though they risk being denounced as supporters of Satan.
So, on the amendment to the smoking ban - I don't want an amendment at all. It is a ridiculous ban and should be removed entirely. It will not result in smokers everywhere as the shrill voices will declare. Private businesses can still refuse to allow smoking.
They just won't be forced to.
"Nobody can smoke and eat at the same time anyway"
I have seen Chinese diners achieve this feat!
Fredrik - that doesn't count. The Chinese have magical smoking powers.
For all the hype about 'smoking causes infertility' and 'smoking makes your danglies floppy', it doesn't seem to have harmed Chinese reproductive success.
Does anyone think that someone, somewhere, is just making this stuff up?
I too would like a complete reversal of the smoking ban but it ain't going to happen; I would be happy to settle for pubs to be able to designate smoking rooms (with associated sagfeguards for passing non-smokers), they used to call such rooms 'the public bar'.
We all remember those places such as motorway service canteens where the smoking zone was full while the non-smoking area was largely empty.
Numerous attempts were made prior to the ban to set up non-smoking pubs, all failed; even Weatherspoons tried to implement their own in some of their pubs, they failed too.
Those pubs that chose not to designate a smoking room would soon suffer the consequences of such a semi-free market.
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