On Another Forum...

[Robusto]

... the topic of smoking in pubs cropped up.

One person I recognise wrote this:

i know smokers, i am sometimes a smoker and i have yet to meet a single person whose decision about whether to go out or not has been swayed by the smoking ban. no one before this ban uttered the words "i'm just popping down the pub for a smoke".

And I responded with this. The language is strong, but I mean it.

Oh yes they fucking did!!!!!
And now I fucking can't, and it's annoying. It's annoying that there is no half-way house. That this country has become so ALL or NOTHING about EVERYTHING.
Going out for a cigar smoke with mates was DEFINITELY why I used to go out to the pub, and oftentimes the people in the pub adored the aroma we put out. This is called having a herf - and it's all fucked up now. A group of us would cross the county for a laugh in a central pub over cigars... and now we are just bad boy lepers.
Hence why I'm after a sofa for my shack.
I swear I used to say "I'm off to the pub for a smoke".
(I do not drink).


I just wondered if people feel this ALL OR NOTHING thing in the UK now? I must say I am feeling it acutely over lots of things.


The Nanny State, sort of thing.

[Drewmidorn]

I often used to go to the pub for a pot of tea and a cigar with a good book in the afternoon....ahhh halcyon days of yore.

[Robusto]

Precisely, Drew.

Some of this discussion came about because of the proposed sound limiter legislation for live music. I just see a country of jobsworths bleeding all the fun away and crushing spontaneity.

I can see both sides, really, but I feel lots of things are being fiddled with. And I'm not a crabby old Tory.

I wish governments would stop bloody worrying about my welfare all the time and taking care of me. Let me be, FFS.

[Drewmidorn]

On that note Bryan I'm assuming you've signed the on line petition at the government website about the noise!

I played a gig in some random historic building a year or so ago and the noise limiter was so low our singers could trip it without any amplification....we eventually sorted it to a certain extent, but we had to ask the audience not to sing along or cheer! lol...it could never be that bad again!

[Robusto]

Absolutely, Drew. Signed.

We played a large wedding in an old abbey last year, and a mere handclap switched off all the current repeatedly. No staff were on hand to sort the problem out, so we had to do acoustic singalongs of nonsense like We'll Meet Again with sax and drums as the only possible accompaniment.

At another place, a hotel owner brandishes a proboscis microphone thing at us like a big threat as he checks the decibels. This guy, I have to say, is a prime wanker!

It's nuts legislation that will allow the Decibel Nazis to go bonkers in some places.

Nanny State. Can You Feel It?...

[Deano]

Dunno. I quite like going down the pub and not having to come home and soap and shower before I go to bed now. For those who don't smoke it's unfair they're subjected to other's cancer-causing smoke.

I'm afraid a half-way house won't work. If given the choice 99% of pubs would stay smoking and non-smokers would still be forced to have to breathe in the smoke of the minority.

[Wildwood]

Hmm...I agree about the Nanny state. I'm old and stupid enough not to need to be told how to do everything, and what is or is not good for me.

Have to say I also share Deano's view a bit. I hate the smell of cigarette smoke, and it gets in your hair, clothes etc and is disgusting. It really did used to spoil my pleasure in going to the pub.

My own view is that a TOTAL ban is stupid. There should be a range of exceptions, so as many people are catered for as possible. And that includes ciggie smokers too.

I tend to stick to rules...it's the way I was brought up. I tend not to walk on areas with "Keep off the grass" signs. However, I've always been subversive on the quiet side...small acts of rebellion give me my own sense of self. Not for their own sake, but because I trust my own judgement rather than either some egocentric politician or vox pop "democracy". The social and work structures we live in and many value themselves by are generally balls in my opinion, so I try and quietly live my life the way I want it.

Which is all to say I will continue to smoke cigars as long as I'm not harming anyone else by doing so...nanny state or not!

Wildwood

[Robusto]

I'm jumping in quickly in a short break Deano, Malc.

Recently Larrysputnik wrote that he'd been out to a cigar bar. I just wish there were places like that near me. There won't ever be, because cigars just aren't as widespread outside large cities, I think.

I would love to be able to go to a bar in, say, Canterbury and know that I was going to be amongst fellow cigar smokers enjoying a herf and a drink.

I would even have preferred some pubs to have been designated smoking pubs, and for some free choice to have remained.

Don't worry. If, say, three pubs in my town were so designated and had become shitholes, I wouldn't go.

But I do think a better way would have been to maintain an element of adult choice in this way.

PUB (SMOKING)

vs

PUB (NON-SMOKING)

I'm fed up with people making these choices. It won't be long before alcohol is severely restricted like smoking.

[Drewmidorn]

I think smoking and non smoking pubs would find a balance. There were non smoking pubs before the ban, not many though, for people who didn't wish to pick up the tobacco smell. There was one in the west Midlands that proudly advertised itself as "The pub with no Atmosphere"... they really weren't joking.

I don't go out to pubs very much but I have non smoking friends who do and they say they spend most of their time watching their friends laughing and flirting outside whilst smoking and eventually end up joining them. At least the smoke smell used to cover up the awful smell of perfumes named after footballers girlfriends, stale beer in the carpet and piss and disinfectant wafting through from the gents.

I don't think anybody has a problem with no smoking around children, in restaurants, cinemas etc... we all agree its not great. But when you can't go to a specialized bar and buy a drink and a cigar in comfort you know that its the thin end of the wedge and it will soon (within 20 years I reckon) be illegal to buy, sell or consume tobacco in any form. Only 20 years ago you could smoke on a bus, an airplane, in an office. Some changes are for the better. People always say the government will not ban smoking all together because of the revenue. I'm sure that not true as cigarette sales are massively down since the ban on smoking in pubs.

They are also planning to price alcohol to stop poor people getting drunk, and soon enough salt will be illegal in restaurants I am sure. Obesity is also increasingly becoming a social crime with government legislation for labeling of food... I understand that the smoking debate is a little different because of passive smoke etc, but why are we not allowed to mess ourselves in the way we please? We're quite happy to let them mess the banking system and the middle east up on our behalf using our money.

George Orwell was more right than he could have ever known, and we are still at the thin end of the wedge. CCTV cameras in Leicester recording peoples conversations!? People being arrested and held for substantial periods without being charged or evidence brought to bear, suspicion being a good enough reason!?

[Scottish_Cuban]

Hey Bryan just to ask, have you been on the smokers club website? they have a list of all around the uk of places where you can smoke!
There are quite a few in edinburgh that i use, and because they are private clubs they cant be touched.I have no idea if the smoking ban affected them in England. When i was in Durban in South Africa last year, its so bad there you cant even smoke in your own home let alone your own car. Talk about nanny states! this country is so down the plug hole next we`ll be taxed for breathing!.

[Robusto]

Hey Bryan just to ask, have you been on the smokers club website? they have a list of all around the uk of places where you can smoke!

I haven't heard of this, but BOY! will I be checking it out!
Many thanks, SC!

I bet there will be nowhere in Kent closer than Tunbridge Wells.

[Scottish_Cuban]

Bryan there is a place in Tunbridge Wells also there is a hotel in Ashford called Eastwell Manor Hotel, TN25 4HR. I dont know if this is near you but hope it helps!.

[Robusto]

Fuck me! We're playing three weddings at Eastwell Manor soon - so I have a reason to pop over, check the place and sit back and enjoy a fat one!

This is a real find, Sir. I'm very grateful.

May I just say to fellow posters on this forum that I am more interested in sex and music than smoking cigars BUT I do rather love Havanas as well.

I'm not DESPERATE desperate to smoke indoors again - but I do miss the chance to do so because I consider myself to be a civilised chap who, like Wildwood, obeys the law in his own fashion, but who objects to his (my) own pleasures being removed.

Wait til rugby is banned because players might break a bone. Wait til whisky is banned because it might fuck up your liver.

I also feel a slight pain in the disappearance of indoor smoking because I have only relatively recently smoked openly in public. For years I was fodder for men in white coats. I would deny I smoked.

I'd only felt confident enough to smoke a cigar in a pub for about four years before it was banned. I've just turned 50.

Smoking in pubs for me was like a homosexual coming out. I found it liberating to be honest about smoking. And since going public about smoking, I've learnt to appreciate the habit and research it.

That's why I can be very touchy on the subject of the smoking ban.

[Robusto]

I have emailed Eastwell Manor.

[Pantomimehorse]

can we have a link to the site please?

cheers