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Remember When Banning Smoking


Razors Edge

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10 minutes ago, Razors Edge said:

...in restaurants (and then bars) was going to be "a bad thing"?

Either the smokers calmed down, or quit smoking(?), but I'd have to say public smoking bans have been wildly successful and a true quality of life improvement for most of us.

Tom

This is one of those tree hugging CA things again but we banned smoking in restaurants years before it went national.  I recall eating out while visiting the in laws and being asked smoking or non smoking and thinking oh damn you can still smoke here.  I also remember my daughter getting ill from the smoke smell because you know, smoke will stay in the appropriate section.

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2 minutes ago, BuffJim said:

When I took my X country bike trip in 2009, Michigan was one of the last to adopt. I assume they've switched by now, but I almost choked on the smoke a few times.

I remember we had 'smoking sections'.  Like the air never moved between the 2 sections.  The only difference between the 2 sections was one has ashtrays.

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38 minutes ago, Kzoo said:

I remember we had 'smoking sections'.  Like the air never moved between the 2 sections.  The only difference between the 2 sections was one has ashtrays.

True! One night we went to dinner and sat in non smoking right next to the bar area where smoking was permitted (back in the day). I complained to the waitress and she looked dumb as a box of rocks when she said that we were in the non-smoking section.  I told her it was like being in the no-pee section of the public swimming pool. We left.

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58 minutes ago, Razors Edge said:

...in restaurants (and then bars) was going to be "a bad thing"?

Either the smokers calmed down, or quit smoking(?), but I'd have to say public smoking bans have been wildly successful and a true quality of life improvement for most of us.

Tom

My main issue is that now I have to fight my way through the herd of smokers to enter many buildings.   Went to my doctor appt a few weeks back and the main entrance to the building from the parking garage seemed to be the area of choice to smoke.  

I like to take a walk around the pond on campus at our office at lunch, and it is is hard to do with out passing through multiple congregations of smokers.

I will agree that smoking is on the decline, which is a good thing but I think we are now so unaccustomed to smelling cigarette smoke that when we do encounter it, it seems stronger than ever. 

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49 minutes ago, Kzoo said:

The only difference between the 2 sections was one has ashtrays.

I miss having an ashtray on the tables with the smoking bans in restaurants.  There is no place to put the parsley and empty straw wrappers.  With no ashtrays I am forced to throw my trash at other diners.  

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7 minutes ago, jsharr said:

My main issue is that now I have to fight my way through the herd of smokers to enter many buildings.   Went to my doctor appt a few weeks back and the main entrance to the building from the parking garage seemed to be the area of choice to smoke.  

I walk by office buildings pretty much every lunchtime when I am downtown.  I can't say I see huddles of smokers anymore. I was even talking about this with my wife the other day, and she agreed.  

DC also has a "No smoking w/in 100' from an entrance" rule that is either a law or just something most office buildings post.  I don't actually mind the smell of cigarette smoking as I grew up with my Mom smoking in the house. I likely have some positive memories associated with the smell.  

What I don't miss is cleaning the ashtray in the cars.  As kids, we got the "clean & vacuum out the car" duty when my Dad would wash the cars, and the ashtray was the nastiest.

Tom

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I had and aunt and uncle who, when restaurants had smoking and non-smoking sections, would ask for non-smoking because the air smelled better there - then they'd try to sneak a cigarette in after their meal!  The rest of the extended family, even the smokers, were disgusted!

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3 hours ago, Kzoo said:

I was traveling a lot for work when the airline smoking ban went into effect.  Talk about creating nasty travelers.....

And as for the restaurants and bars, they were all going to go out of business.

Loads of our pubs did go under.

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E-cigarette maker Juul targeted teens with false claims of safety, lawsuit says

When a San Diego-based mother posted an emergency alert on Nextdoor, a community discussion app, she hoped a Good Samaritan could help, according to court filings. Her son was hysterical after losing a flash drive with his homework near the local McDonald’s, she wrote, uploading a photo along with the message. A neighbor quickly replied, explaining that the chewing-gum-sized object in the picture was not a flash drive: It was a Juul vaping device.

“That’s just an indication of how quickly Juuls became prevalent,” recounted Esfand Nafisi, a lawyer who is handling two of three lawsuits initiated against Juul Labs last month. “You blinked your eye, and suddenly they were all over the place.”

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2 hours ago, jsharr said:

My main issue is that now I have to fight my way through the herd of smokers to enter many buildings.   Went to my doctor appt a few weeks back and the main entrance to the building from the parking garage seemed to be the area of choice to smoke.  

I like to take a walk around the pond on campus at our office at lunch, and it is is hard to do with out passing through multiple congregations of smokers.

I will agree that smoking is on the decline, which is a good thing but I think we are now so unaccustomed to smelling cigarette smoke that when we do encounter it, it seems stronger than ever. 

I actually just did an investigation and got an employee fired for blowing smoke in the face of the building security guard as he tried to ask him to smoke in the designated smoking area and not by the back door. Freaking dick head... 

They are pretty good about it here but some do congregate by the exits.  I think the osha standard is 25' from doorways.

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54 minutes ago, Kzoo said:

Again... Brits vs. 'mericans.......

Vs Scots: when they switched back in 2007.

 

https://www.wnd.com/2007/03/40802/

Scotland’s ban on smoking in pubs has backfired, so to speak, on a regular customer whose constant habit of breaking wind has now resulted in his expulsion from his favorite watering hole.

Stewart Laidlaw, 35, is being barred from Thirsty Kirsty’s in Dunfermline, Fife, for failing to control his flatulence.

 

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“No one could smell anything when the pub was full of cigarette smoke,” Laidlaw told Wales on Sunday. “I never used to complain about the smell of their cigarette smoke, but now everyone complains about me. It’s just a natural thing. What can I do about it? I must be the first person in the country to get banned from a pub for passing wind. But it’s not a title I want. I certainly don’t see it as funny.”

 

The pub’s owner is crying foul, saying the stench has become unbearable since the country’s smoking ban went into effect last year. He thinks drinkers could have been breathing in the waft for years without ever noticing it.

Laidlaw says the ban just snuck up on him, taking him by complete surprise.

 

“I went in and basically he turned round and said, ‘Stewart, that’s the last fart you do in this pub. Get out.’ I didn’t even have a chance to draw breath,” he told the Dumfermline Press.


Read more at https://www.wnd.com/2007/03/40802/#5dw86TbXuzO3vT0h.99
 
 
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I was on a wee local train in Spain after the smoking ban (though folk still lit up the minute they were in terminal at the airport) and this local old codger was standing by the doors, which were of course closed, smoking one after another and no one said a word, the ticket guy included, who passed by several times. Got to love the Spanish, too.

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Yeah, I remember the cries that it would ruin bar business. Every time i’ve gone out over the last 10 or more years, I’ve consciously thought what a better experience it’s been not to be covered in smoke. 

My office building was slow to phase out smoking. They thought it would be bad for business. Now, you can’t smoke anywhere on the property (which is considerable around the building) and can’t smell of smoke when you come to work or back from lunch/break.

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19 hours ago, Razors Edge said:

I walk by office buildings pretty much every lunchtime when I am downtown.  I can't say I see huddles of smokers anymore. I was even talking about this with my wife the other day, and she agreed.  

DC also has a "No smoking w/in 100' from an entrance" rule that is either a law or just something most office buildings post.  I don't actually mind the smell of cigarette smoking as I grew up with my Mom smoking in the house. I likely have some positive memories associated with the smell.  

What I don't miss is cleaning the ashtray in the cars.  As kids, we got the "clean & vacuum out the car" duty when my Dad would wash the cars, and the ashtray was the nastiest.

Tom

I don't think my cars even have ashtrays anymore.

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20 hours ago, jsharr said:

My main issue is that now I have to fight my way through the herd of smokers to enter many buildings.   Went to my doctor appt a few weeks back and the main entrance to the building from the parking garage seemed to be the area of choice to smoke.  

Don’t they know they are supposed to smoke out by the propane tanks?

 

We have lots of redneck bars that still allow smoking. They have to post a notice on the entrances that they allow smoking.  The same bars before the ban were not too bad, some people smoked and some didn’t. Now if you go in there for one drink you leave smelling like an ash tray. Everyone is smoking. 

Where I worked I couldn’t believe they banned smoking. Everything in a forge shop put off smoke, the conveyors moving the hot parts put off smoke, the press oil dripping on the hot died smoked, the parts tubs holding the hot parts smoked as the paint was burning off the tubs. When I first started working there you couldn’t see the other side of the shop through the smoke. They first banned smoking in the break rooms and a couple years later the whole shop.

 

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15 minutes ago, Longjohn said:

We have lots of redneck bars that still allow smoking. They have to post a notice on the entrances that they allow smoking.  The same bars before the ban were not too bad, some people smoked and some didn’t. Now if you go in there for one drink you leave smelling like an ash tray. Everyone is smoking. 

 

This waasn't an option in the UK, if it had been I wouldn't have minded, give people the choice, that's the British way traditionally, imposing a blanket ban (which was the death knell for so many of our pubs) is the sort of thing a dictatorship does.

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1 hour ago, Razors Edge said:

You blame smoking bans for that?????  Seems a little odd unless the UK has an insane health crisis that the US has somehow figured out.

Tom

Thom I do blame the smoking ban and so does everyone else, it’s just the fact of the matter; the ban was the final nail in the coffin of many pub businesses that were already merely clinging.

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4 hours ago, pedalphile said:

An average of 18 pubs a week close down in the UK.

According to recent studies done by Professor Dr. HG Parsa 59% of hospitality facilities fail in the period of 3 years. In the first year, is the highest level of failure, 26%, 19% in the second and 14% in the third year of business.

 

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2 minutes ago, Kzoo said:

According to recent studies done by Professor Dr. HG Parsa 59% of hospitality facilities fail in the period of 3 years. In the first year, is the highest level of failure, 26%, 19% in the second and 14% in the third year of business.

 

Mostly these pubs that are failing have been there for donkey’s years, the furthest enterprises could be from new start ups.

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19 minutes ago, pedalphile said:

Thom I do blame the smoking ban and so does everyone else, it’s just the fact of the matter; the ban was the final nail in the coffin of many pub businesses that were already merely clinging.

Decreased wages, increased taxes and smoking ban all occurred at about the same time.

Beer consumption in the UK dropped.  Retailers began to discount beer for home consumption

Too many factors to blame smoking, or the lack of it, on the reason pubs were forced to close.

https://www.bbc.com/news/health-40444460

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14 minutes ago, jsharr said:

Decreased wages, increased taxes and smoking ban all occurred at about the same time.

Beer consumption in the UK dropped.  Retailers began to discount beer for home consumption

Too many factors to blame smoking, or the lack of it, on the reason pubs were forced to close.

https://www.bbc.com/news/health-40444460

And STARBUCKS!!! Blame those bastards!!!

Tom

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18 minutes ago, jsharr said:

Decreased wages, increased taxes and smoking ban all occurred at about the same time.

Beer consumption in the UK dropped.  Retailers began to discount beer for home consumption

Too many factors to blame smoking, or the lack of it, on the reason pubs were forced to close.

https://www.bbc.com/news/health-40444460

You should check out what the people running the closing pubs have to say on the subject.

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1 minute ago, pedalphile said:

You should check out what the people running the closing pubs have to say on the subject.

Of course they want to blame anyone but themselves, so why not blame the smoking ban.  Not taxes, not changing economics or consumption habits.  Smoking.  Makes sense.  Adapt or die.

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1 minute ago, jsharr said:

I would rather go in a smoke filled pub and drink a warm beer with a bunch of guys with bad teeth than go in a Starbucks.

One of the most enticing pubs I ever went into and left without having a drink was a rural Belgian boozer on an early Friday evening, it was raining and I was bike touring and needed to camp soon, so wanted directions. It was one of those moments when the whole place falls silent, and everyone turns to look at you. Everyone was a rustic, all men, it was like a Belgian version of a Thomas Hardy tavern, all supping Hoegaarden draught and smoking, the place was a fug. Directions (accurate) were given by the only English speaker present, and I thanked and with regrets, left drinkless; I still regret that I had to press on that night.

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10 minutes ago, pedalphile said:

One of the most enticing pubs I ever went into and left without having a drink was a rural Belgian boozer on an early Friday evening, it was raining and I was bike touring and needed to camp soon, so wanted directions. It was one of those moments when the whole place falls silent, and everyone turns to look at you. Everyone was a rustic, all men, it was like a Belgian version of a Thomas Hardy tavern, all supping Hoegaarden draught and smoking, the place was a fug. Directions (accurate) were given by the only English speaker present, and I thanked and with regrets, left drinkless; I still regret that I had to press on that night.

I hope you enjoyed your Starbucks later.

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Perhaps the situation changed by now, we were amazed in Copenhagen, Denmark about 7 yrs. ago ..and real cycling place ...there was smoking allowed in certain outdoor cafes beside outdoor non-smoking areas.  It was dumb because this was a high end patisserie place.  We had serious problems finding seating where wind didn't blow.  Then walking out of the main central train station in city, immediately were a ton of smokers..  a blue haze by the main entrance doors.

Just this past June, in Tokyo, we went a district just 3 blocks from hotel in the business district, where in the evening there are restaurants, bars.  The whole area is dominated by Japanese/Asian men in office shirts and dress pants, shoes.  Very few Japanese/Asian women.  This is part of their work culture, socializing lots after work into long hrs., to show your loyalty to the firm/be in the "crowd".  Went to a ramen place.  2nd time we went, we just left before ordering food, because guys were smoking inside the restaurant.  This is all over Tokyo where a restaurant may attempts to have separate rm. with a door...or no door for smoking section.

So Japan may not care about enjoying sushi, sashimi.smoke-free in restaurants.  

In Seoul, for tourist areas they didn't have smoking..but not sure what city requirements truly are.

 

 

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