How do you protect your employees from passive smoking though ???

A ban on smoking in public places will quite certainly kill off two of my three local pubs. The third has "dedicated rooms" already, which work effectively.

Air extraction systems have moved on by leaps and bounds over the last few years, but very few publicans have invested in them.

The fumes from vehicle exhausts do far more damage (planetwide, not just in a pub or restaurant), but nobody suggests banning cars.....

Snorri

we can manage without tobacco but not cars

Before too much longer, we are going to have to do without cars, as there will be nothing left to fuel them with.

Anti-smokers always see the fag stuck in someone's mouth, but never the cr*p coming out of their own car tailpipe.

Also, I'd query very strongly just how much most drivers really need a car. Just take a look at a traffic jam one day - queues of cars with only one person in them. But ask people to share journeys and you get a blank stare, as though you had just suggested the world was about to end.

Double standards.

Snorri

I disagree

Modern cars emit far less fumes than the Public Transport buses that I see belching out fumes (usually with one or two people on them). It also costs more fuel per person to travel by rail than it does by car (which completely flaws the argument for getting us out of our cars), and at £121 a return trip to London (2 hours) whats the viable alternative (costs me £35 in diesel in my car)?

Also - I could understand your argument if I were suggesting you sit in an enclosed room and eat your dinner whilst I rev up my 1984 Ford Cortina

..yep me too Chloe hate smoking and I do not allow it inside my house. Having said that when I go out to restauraunts etc I am only in a smokey area for a short time compared to the rest of my life when I am not, so I am not too concerned about the passive smoking aspect on these occasions . I appreciate smokers find it is hard to give up too and realise that for some a night out wihout a smoke would be impossible, so I try to take a 'live and let live view' .

hello ...as a smoker i am keeping out of this one .......

Me too.........

Well I am a smoker, but I try to be as considerate as I can be. I don't believe non-smokers should have to breathe in someones elses smoke!! Seperate areas should be available for us, as Snorri has said, the facilities are avaiable. Therefore not affecting non-smokers. Wonder why....it always comes back to money!!

Having smoking area's is all well and good, but what does a party of non smokers and smokers do, seperate for the evening?

I don't think the arguement that a smoking ban would kill trade holds water, maybe it would hurt sales for a short time, but people who drink also tend to be sociable, and the best place to do that is in the pub. I'm sure a saw a report on the ban in Ireland, and the pubs were still full, maybe the peep's who don't like smoke started using the pubs when the smoke went? If I'm wrong I stand corrected.