PDA

View Full Version : The Pub Curmudgeon - A whiff of intolerance



Blog Tracker
10-08-2013, 16:01
Visit The Pub Curmudgeon site (http://pubcurmudgeon.blogspot.com/2013/08/a-whiff-of-intolerance.html)


The recent spell of hot weather has led some people to venture into beer gardens that they may not have visited for six years. And – shock! horror! – they have found them to be populated by smokers (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-23515135). This is obviously an inevitable consequence of the ban on smoking indoors and frankly I have zero sympathy for the complaints. Maybe if you object to smoking in beer gardens you should campaign for the restoration of indoor smoking rooms. It really represents a remarkable cheek to whine about smoking on the ten days each year that the weather is pleasant enough for you to venture outside, while the smokers have to endure whatever it throws at them 365 days a year. It reminds me of this case (http://www.freedom2choose.info/news1.php?id=713) from five years ago.
Of course pubs are fully entitled to designate part or all of their beer gardens as non-smoking areas, and I can think of one or two that do have separate smoking and non-smoking areas. But, even then, the antismokers are likely to moan “Oh noes! There’s someone smoking in the open air forty feet away! I’m going to DIE!” And the rarity of outdoor non-smoking areas gives a clear indication of how licensees perceive their commercial viability. What on earth is the point if it’s only going to be used on the handful of warm, sunny days we enjoy each year?
Well done to Real Ale Up North (http://realaleupnorth.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/smoking-in-beer-gardens-show-some.html) for a very sensible blogpost on the subject. And the Daily Mash has, as so often, hit the nail firmly only the head when it reports Non-smokers told to shut up and stop being so utterly pathetic (http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/society/non-smokers-told-to-shut-up-and-stop-being-so-utterly-pathetic-2013080878180).


More... (http://pubcurmudgeon.blogspot.com/2013/08/a-whiff-of-intolerance.html)