December 22, 2005

Partial ban on blankets

It looks more and more like smoking in pubs (or at least some pubs) is going to be banned. Personally I'm in favour of a partial ban — dry-led pubs serving plated, sit-down meals would become non-smoking, and wet-led pubs, which are often "community" pubs, would continue to allow people to smoke1. This means non-smokers taking on bar jobs will be able to find pubs to work in without exposure to environmental smoke, pub food will taste better, and those pubs which would die under a smoking ban get a reprieve. Most of the sort of people who don't like smoking in pubs probably already mostly go to dry-lead pubs anyway. Everybody wins, or at least nobody loses all that badly, I think.

However, recent research from some economists at UCL, reported in the Observer, adds an interesting twist.

Children's health will be put at risk from passive smoking if the government bans smoking in all restaurants and bars, according to dramatic new research out today.

The study, which will provoke fresh controversy over whether a partial ban would be the better option, concluded that parents, particularly poorer ones, who are prevented from smoking in bars tend to smoke more in front of their children at home. Passive smoking has been linked to breathing difficulties and asthma among children.

Source: The Observer, 18/12/2005

Now, I think that these stereotypical poor parents prone to smoking in pubs tend to go to "community" type pubs most of all. Which in my experience tend to be wet-led. So would it be fair to say that, for the sake of the children, a partial ban is actually a better bet than a total, blanket ban on smoking in pubs? Then again, this all flies in the face of research showing that a ban on smoking in enclosed public places is likely to reduce the amount of smoking at home. It's all so confusing.

I guess that if the balance of research shows that public health is best served by a total ban, then I can live with it; I do worry that it marks the beginning of the end for community pubs, though. But then I work in one, I would worry about that kind of thing, wouldn't I?

1 Dry sales in pubs are food sales, generally excluding things like crisps and nuts. Wet sales are everything sold over the bar, roughly. Hence a wet-led pub is one where the focus is on drink, whereas a dry-led pub makes most of its money through meals.

[Update 1: I mean led, not lead, apparently.]
[Update 2: Looks like a blanket ban is now more likely ]

Posted by James at 03:07 | Comments (4) | TrackBack
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January 04, 2005

Public Inhalation

On Monday, Toby posted an entry about smoking in public places where he proposed a free-market style alternative to a smoking ban. I fail to see how this proposal is noticeably different from the status quo, which suggests to me that, not only does it not work in theory (as I will demonstrate), but it also doesn't work in practice (as recently demonstrated in East Yorkshire).

The proposal doesn't work in theory because people are not divided neatly into social groupings of smokers and non-smokers. I don't smoke, but one of my housemates smokes regularly, and the others "occasionally". If there were a mixture of smoking and non-smoking pubs here in Beeston, I imagine when we went out we would invariably end up in the former type of pub, so I as a non-smoker would gain nothing at all from the existence of non-smoking pubs. Only pure non-smoking groups would be likely to frequent non-smoking venues, and I would be surprised if these groups are numerous enough to make running a non-smoking venue profitable. I can think of few social groupings I'm in that are exclusively made up of non-smokers, but perhaps I'm atypical — answers on a comment/trackback to that one, please!

So I don't know what to do about the problem of smoking in pubs, and other public places, to be honest. I do know I'm fed up of my clothes stinking of smoke, of my hair stinking of smoke, of coughing up crud after every night out, and of enduring the smell of smoke while I'm out. I also know I'm even sicker of these things happening to me at work1. But while I can't see a solution other than a ban, banning something because some people find it unpleasant doesn't appeal to my fluffy liberal values. Banning something because it's a danger to the health of people nearby seems more justified, but the people in the smoky pub (with the notable possible exception of the staff) are there entirely out of choice, so the number of relevant affected people is relatively low.

So if a ban isn't the right answer, and a purely free market system won't work either, what will work? Anybody?

1 You might choose to argue that I'm entirely free to find a job somewhere else, instead; this isn't entirely accurate, though. When I took on my current job, it was chosen because the hours would fit around my existing schedule, and with no relevant experience any other pub might have been less keen to take me on. I couldn't afford to factor smokiness into the decision as well.

Posted by James at 03:22 | Comments (6) | TrackBack
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