Smoking

[lostcarpark]

I have never been a smoker, so I can't really relate to the needs smokers have. However, I can relate to how uncomfortable a smoky pub can get for a non-smoker. I've experienced having to get out because your lungs hurt and your eyes are watering. I don't like waking up the next morning and smelling smoke from my pillow (and lets not even talk about the previous evening's clothes).

So I've been in favour of the ban on smoking in all work places since it was first mentioned over a year ago. Actually I was in favour of it before that, but I'd never have thought Ireland would be the first EU country to implement it.

There has been a lot of resistance. Publicans said their businesses will go down the tubes. People who stock vending machines will be out on the street. Air conditioning installers will have to pack their bags (I don't get this one - surely most of the demand for air conditioning is in office buildings).

But it seems support for the ban is on the rise. Apparently 70% of the public is in favour, as are over 40% of smokers. Publicans are now saying that they could see rise in business from non-smokers (well, duh). And according to this web poll, 86% are currently lookign forward to the ban.

I find it really interesting to see how attitudes have changed. It remains to see how it will work out in practice, but two thirds of the population are non-smokers, so why should a minority of smokers be allowed to force everyone endure a smoky atmosphere?

I respect a smoker's right to light up, but only if they respect my right not to breathe the smoke they exhale.

Comments

[etherealfionna.livejournal.com]

Uh, 6 metres will only work somewhere you can get that far from a door. Otherwise, who is going to make sure that the people outside one pub's doors aren't the people from the pub 6 metres up the road?

Employers may provide outdoor smoking shelters
Most already do this, don't they? In my experience, when they get annoyed at their front getting littered, and a gang of employees lurking about there looking seedy, they decide it's the cheaper option. Again, depending on them having the space.

Actually, there could a market for rebranding cigarette machines to sell nicotine gum and patches...
Gum maybe, but patches aren't something that you use at a variable rate. And of course, both of them are just another nicotine addiction to move onto, and thus defeat the point. Might as well start selling snuff again. Heh. Now there's something there might be a market in.

I think there was a move to outlaw selling cigarettes by machine because the machine has no way of verifying the age of the purchaser.
One of the local pubs in Innishannon got around this by putting the machine up ridiculously high (actually, I doubt this was the motivation, but you know...) Nothing like completely losing the respect of all the patrons in a pub by having to climb on a stool to use a vending machine.