Not so smoke free Britain

[Dan2nd]

People are still lighting up in Stoke-on-Trent's pubs after a bureaucratic mistake over the ban on smoking in enclosed public spaces.
On-the-spot fines cannot yet be issued to smokers flouting the 1 July ban because of "late changes in technical bits of legislation", the council said.

Landlord Dax Robateau has put cheeky "Welcome to Smoke-on-Trent" posters in The Smithfield pub in Hanley

The authority said it would be able to issue fines from 16 July.

It said it was still able to take action against pubs or clubs where people were smoking and would be able to take retrospective action against any smokers caught flouting the ban.



'Bit miffed'

A spokesman said: "People are obliged to comply with a speeding restriction, regardless if there's a police speed gun nearby.

"The whole government advice and council advice is to advise and educate people in the early days.

"(But) they can still be reported and action can still be taken against them."


Pam Rowland is still enforcing the smoking ban in the Greyhound Inn

Mr Robateau said: "I found out about the loophole when it was in the local paper yesterday and I was just a bit miffed.

"I checked it out and found out it was true so I thought we might as well tell people that the law wasn't enforceable."

But one publican said she did not believe the council would implement the ban retrospectively.

Pam Rowland, landlady of the Greyhound Inn, in Penkhull, said: "It's sort of fun to flout the law and I don't think the council will do much about it because at the end of the day it's their mistake."

She added that she was still enforcing the ban and that most pubs were doing the same thing.

"I think most people are actually sticking with it. It could only happen in Stoke."

The council said the mistake was due to its belief that the city's elected mayor Mark Meredith had the power to delegate the authorisation of the ban to his director of community services.

It said late legal changes meant it realised too late that it would have to be enforced by the licensing and consumer protection committee instead.

It said the committee would delegate powers for officers to issue on-the-spot fines at a meeting on Monday.

The Goverment mess up again :rolleyes:

[-:Undertaker:-]

I don't think it should be banned, if you go to a pub what do you expect? SMOKE AND THE SMELL OF ALCOHOL !

Yet again the Greenpeace lobby has won.

[Mexel]

I don't think it should be banned, if you go to a pub what do you expect? SMOKE AND THE SMELL OF ALCOHOL !

Yet again the Greenpeace lobby has won.

Most pubs smell of old people now lol.


Anyway loads of tourists are on there way to Stoke this weekend its being said and bar takings will go up loads lol.

[GommeInc]

Apparently most pubs in my area now smell of sick and alcohol "/

Besides, no pub is smoke free, considering you can still smoke outside under a gazebo "/

[VPSwow]

I found out that a bus shelter is also counted i was having a cig and a passerby said put that out or im ringing the police and then later on that day they put a no smoking sticker on the shelter.

[Concentric2]

I don't think it should be banned, if you go to a pub what do you expect? SMOKE AND THE SMELL OF ALCOHOL !

Yet again the Greenpeace lobby has won.

In my opinion that's a silly arguement - it's like people saying at the time of the abolition of slavery "when you go into the fields you expect to see foreigners in chains working for very little".

I found out that a bus shelter is also counted i was having a cig and a passerby said put that out or im ringing the police and then later on that day they put a no smoking sticker on the shelter.

I think it depends on the kind of shelter - for it to count as an enclosed space it must be at least 50% "walled in", if that makes sense.

[tularis]

As a smoker, I think it's a load of bobba.

This is my reasons why:

- The tax is so high on a pack of cigs anyway. If I want to smoke it costs me nearly £5.00 a packet.
- Now I can only really smoke in my or someone elses house.
- If I want to smoke, then I smoke. Now people are telling me when and where to smoke.
- It's like saying "you eat sweets, go over there and eat sweets or im reporting you".
- My girlfriend doesn't smoke, if we go out I have to find somewhere to smoke. It makes couples like this unsociable.
- Cigarettes are biodegradable. That means if I drop it on the floor, it will disolve anyway.

- I don't mind the smell of smoke and alchohol. At least it takes the smell away from everyone who has wet themselves. Through drinking too much.

Felt I had to put in my two cents.

[GommeInc]

As a smoker, I think it's a load of bobba.

This is my reasons why:

- The tax is so high on a pack of cigs anyway. If I want to smoke it costs me nearly £5.00 a packet.
- Now I can only really smoke in my or someone elses house.
- If I want to smoke, then I smoke. Now people are telling me when and where to smoke.
- It's like saying "you eat sweets, go over there and eat sweets or im reporting you".
- My girlfriend doesn't smoke, if we go out I have to find somewhere to smoke. It makes couples like this unsociable.
- Cigarettes are biodegradable. That means if I drop it on the floor, it will disolve anyway.

- I don't mind the smell of smoke and alchohol. At least it takes the smell away from everyone who has wet themselves. Through drinking too much.

Felt I had to put in my two cents.

- That means little to the central argument, what you pay means nothing. Health is the issue.
- That's the whole point of it. To keep you out of public spaces and harming others, let alone making them and the area around you smell disgusting...
- Wow, that's slightly snobbish. And again, the point of the ban is so you don't smoke in public. I am amazed people are being vigilant and telling smokers what to do.
- Sweets don't harm peoples health as much, nor do they make people smell or cause discomfort in pubs. Granted they now all smell of puke and old people.
- Hey, your relationship, or your cigarettes, what do you love more? I would quit. Because you would be healthier and wouldn't be frowned upon but total strangers.
- They don't 'dissolve' quickly. It will take over 10 years for the butt to dissolve away, then you have the issue of the tobacco and the paper around it. Also, using the sweets example, some rain will dissolve them away in no time.

[Baving]

I think the ban is silly, there are so many smokers and not enough people to regulate it

[BellyButtons]

I think the ban is silly, there are so many smokers and not enough people to regulate it

One person can control a million, people are powerless.

I don't understand why people smoke/drink. It's silly, why not just point a gun at your head and pull the trigger? Its basically the same as poisoning yourself.