Sunday 19 September 2010

Spending Antismokers' Money.

Tipped by John Walker (not the whisky) in Email is the FOI response to North Norfolk Council concerning how much they spend on smoker persecution.

They spent £12,202.36

So what did they get for that? Well, there were 41 complaints about smokers so that cost £297.62 per complaint. Every antismoker who whined cost the council tax payer that much. If you live in North Norfolk, every Stasi whiner cost you that much. You must be delighted to see your council tax increase to cover these public-spirited curtain-twitchers. Aren't you?

But there must have been a return on investment, surely? The fines would cover it. Wouldn't they?

How many prosecutions or penalties have there been? 0 Prosecutions, 6 FPN's

Six fixed penalty notices. So if they were charged £2034 each, that's the cost of enforcing the will of those who bleat about the smell covered.

How much has the council received in fines for breaches of the smoking ban? £140

Oh. They are a mere £12062.36 short. That's covered by council tax. You antismokers paid it too. Those of you who aren't bothered by smokers chipped in also. But hey, it's money well wasted, isn't it?

You know what's funny? More and more smokers are taking trips abroad or finding a Man with a Van and paying less tax because of the antismoking agenda. Meanwhile the antismokers are, like everyone else, paying more. And it's all being wasted because none of it makes a jot of difference (thanks to Email and comment tips for that one).

Hate isn't free, antismokers. It's costing you money, and increasingly, it's costing you more than it costs us.

Keep hating. We'll keep smoking and laughing at you.

You think amending the smoking ban is akin to bringing back hanging, Nicky Clegg? In a way it is. We'll just give you more and more rope. You might see what it means before the trapdoor opens but there's a large part of me that hopes you don't.

In fact, I don't think you can.

7 comments:

Danny said...

a somkers movement should be formed and arrangements made to carry out an organised 1-day guerilla campaign of sparking up in prohibited places.

the cost of prosectuing all these law breaking smokers (if the campaign was observed once or twice a month) would flumox the haters no sweat.

Mark Wadsworth said...

A splendid counter attack by the F2C bloke up in Scotland: "This is not surprising when the failure rate of NRT products is 98.4 percent"

This figure looks about right to me (having reworked 'official' statisics to make sense), it's somewhere between 95% and 100%.

But I think that we should do like the bansturbators do and quote it to one decimal place to make it seem more convincing.

Mark Wadsworth said...

Shit! I read the full thing, and 1.6% is the 'official' success rate for NRT, as against 0.4% for a placebo. So really the success rate is only 1.2%.

Eddie Douthwaite said...

Have a look at this Press Release by Freedom To Choose(Scotland) and you will see the money spent on Tobacco Control in Scotland.

http://www.pr-inside.com/ash-scotland-looks-for-support-from-r2122136.htm

The witch from Essex said...

I love the idea of contributing sweet fuck all to the treasury for my tobacco and the fact that it is costing a fortune to hunt down evil smokers.
What will happen when all the U.K.'s smokers wake up and buy from abroad or white van man.
Where will the £10.2 billion that is currently gained by the treasury from tobacco tax come from then ?

Leg-iron said...

It's not only the loss of taxes. It's all the money spent on antismoking. Add that to the lost taxes and there's a big, big hole opening up.

Antipholus Papps said...

a smoker's movement should be formed

I wanted to organise a smoker's pride march in Vancouver this year, the week before they banned smoking in parks and on beaches. Instead of a rainbow, we'll have jolly rogers! As it stands, nobody's sure whether they've gone through with it or not. There are no signs. But if I light up a doobie I'm already an outlaw so fuck it!

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