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"I do remember... the corridors of Broadcasting House were strewn with empty champagne bottles. I'll always remember that", Jane Garvey, BBC Five Live, May 10th, 2007, recalling May 2nd, 1997.
Friday, July 3, 2009 at 07:45PM FIFTY pubs a week are closing, in part because of New Labour's fascistic smoking ban. Pro-freedom group FOREST has launched a response with its Save Our Pubs & Clubs campaign, which seeks an amendment to allow smoking areas in, you know, private premises. This is the most pressing cultural and economic matter in the Kingdom today.
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Reader Comments (19)
The most pressing economic matter?
LMAO!
Good stuff, and I've signed up.
To be perfectly accurate though, the smoking ban may be a contributing factor to pub closures but the main reason is the absurdly high price of beer & spirits. The Brewery Operators have been complicit in this, with their rules/regulations/monopoly, and high rents.
On the Continent the ban is pretty much ignored, but why the Scots, and especially the Irish people went along with this diktat is a complete mystery to me.
but why the Scots, and especially the Irish people went along with this diktat is a complete mystery to me
Er, because it's the law. Oh, and most of us hate cigarette smoke anyway.
Bernard -
Yes, alcohol duties are now a catastrophe for the pub trade, that's why I mentioned the smoking ban "in part" is to blame for fifty pubs closing a week.
Wherever the balance of blame should fall, all right thinking people must be outraged that so many small businesses are obliterated and such cultural vandalism happens wholly and directly because of government.
Peter
Of course it's the law NOW, but it was well telegraphed beforehand, and people just gave it a gallic shrug.
Except of course the Gauls ignore what they don't agree with, while leaving the Saxons to toe the line.
We're pathetic.
the Gauls ignore what they don't agree with...
What you mean is the French smokers ignore the ban and the rest of the customers are too pathetic to either boycott the establishment or give the air-polluters a slap.
Good on the Frogs who ignore the 'ban', imposed by inadequates and sociopaths as it is. I look forward to the day we parade these arsewipes through the streets before stringing them up.
....it's time for your de-caffeinated horlicks Peter.
You can have Jackie Smith....I prefer Mr. Hulot.
Good on the French who stand up to the smoking law-breakers and their conniving "hosts".
And what is Rightworld's fixation with "stringing up"? I've lost count of the number of incitements to lynching in the past few months. You guys need to get a grip, or you will give the impression of being a lawless, vindictive rabble. You know - the sort that Dickens described so well in A Tale of Two Cities.
And what is Rightworld's fixation with "stringing up"?
Death comes slow.
... you will give the impression of being a lawless, vindictive rabble.
A lawful, vindictive rabble if you don't mind.
I don't smoke, and when a ban came in New York I was against it. But it has made the bars much more enjoyable, and there has been no real impact on the bar business here so I've been converted. Plus it gives smokers something else to talk about besides how they've tried to quit.
Mahons
Agreed. Tonight, my daughter asked me about a certain pub in the centre of Belfast. I was able to advise her that it used to be a smoky dive, but now it was just a dive.
As I remember, it was the Tories who put in motion the machinery that destroyed the old 'Brewery Baron's', many of whom were party stalwarts. Labour had the unions, Tories had the Brewers..
The gist was that they were villified and demonised until legislation was passed that caused the breakup of what used to be a well run 'licensed' industry, with most pubs having a 'Landlord' who risked losing his licence if his pub had too bad a reputation for fights, etc. They were, in effect, minor pillars of the local community scene, and often well respected within the community.
The real reason for the political angst was probably that they (the pubs, their publicans and the Brewery Barons), ran their industry in such a traditional way that they were not so easily handled and manipulated, - they were a unique industry, - and the politicians didn't like it, and particularly the Tories, who received much funding from the brewers. That there was much disagreement between the two, probably over policy (EU?), was probably one of the reasons for the passing of, what in hindsight was a spiteful and vindictive retaliation by the politicians.
Now we have 'managers', who just do not have the same authority as the old Landlord, and we have less traditional style pubs. All quite sad really - pubs used to be for grown-ups, when men were men, and the girls had the Lounge bar, for a profanity free, and perhaps more sophisticated evening, - now it is for 'shot drinking gigglers' and 'sissy boys', who get excited when they discover a chest or pubic hair!.
Politicians, spite , greed and the law of unintended consequence - you gotta love 'em!
Good summery Ernesto, but in the end it is the local authority that suffers as revenue from business rates and income tax falls away. Look at any high street now. So many boarded up or are just charity shops.
Everyone knows about the 'law of diminishing returns' but central/local government continue to put the squeeze on people and businesses 'til the pips squeak.
They won't learn; cannot learn; incapable of it.
And so the economy declines ever more.
"Presumably they would not claim the same for drugs, even though a tsunami of cocaine has led to its price falling dramatically and consumption increasing dramatically."
Which when you think about it is rather a compelling argument that legalisation will make consumption far worse rather than far better...ooopsy! Tis funny how our resident statists like Peter always follow the prohibition line until it comes to the really nasty and destructive stuff like hard drugs, at which point they turn into libertarians on the spot.
Used to be that we were mockingly described - by the French, - as a nation of shopkeepers. Then came the supermarkets waving handfuls of fivers, and local councils just couldn't resist the chance of easy short term money, - and so they killed the golden goose, the goose that made each town a real community, reducing High Streets to wastelands of charity shops, 'estate agents', and betting shops.
Now it is virtually impossible for 'One man and his dog' to make any sort of living from shopkeeping. The social engineered 'move to centralisation' of everything, from commerce to politics, seems to have had the side effect of killing off any sort of idea of a cohesive 'local community', The parish council - that band of local worthies, - stripped of any worthwhile powers that might make one town or village seem different from another, to be replaced by edict from 'some anonymous 'higher authority', reducing everything to a dreary, and usually lower level of mediocrity.
To parody - 'First they came for the butcher, the baker and the candlestick maker, now they are coming for the pubs!'
That centralisation was yet another idea of the Thatcher years, can we excuse this as yet another example of 'the baby being thrown out with the bath water'?
Surely this is yet another example of the unintended consequence, killing off such a valued component of quality living, couldn't possibly have been done intentionally could it?....
Ernest Young -
Indeed. However, although large corporate retailers benefitted undeniably from a boom in out of town developments in the 1980s, that's not the core of the problem.
The French dubbed us Anglos a nation of shopkeepers when that's what we were. But mid-18th Century limited liability laws began the process that's eroded this. It's limited liability that allows small companies to become large, politically powerful corporates.
We can all make a list of what's wrong in our nations and which laws ought to be repealed. Hardly anyone would cite limited liability, yet very few ideas have been so damaging.
Since these bans are all about health, they should be required to put the Chantix and Zyban warning on all of the government issued “No smoking” signs to prevent lawsuits by forcefully coercing residents into using a dangerous product.
www.marketwatch.com/story/fda-orders-harsher-warnings-on-zyban-chantix-2009711538360
There is always someone like the "Peter" who posted above, on almost every site.
He doesn't listen, he doesn't read, he is not interested in facts. He just knows that "he" personally doesn't like smoking, and for that reason alone, he thinks everyone else should not be allowed to do it anyone near him. Then, as if to rub salt into the wound, he speaks of other people's intolerance. Can't he see that he is Mr Intolerance himself?
What do these people do when they are walking down the high street which is polluted with vehicle fumes? What do they do if ever they are invited to a BBQ where the fumes are 100 times stronger and more dangerous than a 1000 cigarettes? What do they do if they want to go abroad where smoking is as natural as eating and drinking? What do they do if they are in an Indian restaurant where incense is being smoked, or in a restaurant where there is an open grill, or at a birthday party where candles are burning?
I would suppose from the general gist of this person's post, that they would run home as fast as they can from any of these situations in case their clothes and hair start to smell. Well mind how you go love, you could end up stripping over a fag-end and laddering your tights.