Bob Piper has been a Labour Councillor for the Abbey
Ward in Sandwell, West Midlands, for nine years. He is a lifelong supporter of Aston Villa Football Club and a follower of Yorkshire County Cricket Club.
The views expressed here are mine in a personal capacity, not those of the Labour Party, Sandwell MBC, Aston Villa or Yorkshire County Cricket Club. Get it! Mine... just mine!
The ban on smoking in public places represents one of the major advances in public health in the last 100 years, and those who advocate their right to pollute everyone else's atmosphere are just plain wrong. This chap from England's smokiest zone sums it all up without a hint of irony...
In a room of 60-odd people one says he doesn't smoke. They all agree that it's going to be a very different place after today. Dave Wild spends seven or eight hours a day in the pub. He's family, the ex-husband of landlady Linda. But that all stops when his beloved cigs are banned. "In 1974 I first came to this pub. I'm the ex-landlord and I'll stop coming [after the ban]," he says. "I smoke 100 to 120 cigs a day. The ban will kill us.
Quoted in The Independent the singer Joe Jackson, who quit New York because of its smoking ban, said: "I happen to be allergic to dogs [but] I'm not screaming for a total dog ban." No, Joe, but you might want some restriction on them if they were constantly biting your arse, you muppet!
Typical socialist petty-regulator. The owner of a licenced premises should be the only one to decide whether smoking is allowed or not. It is then up to everyone else to decide whether or not they want to work or go there.
Now I hear the anti-s calling for smoking bans in private cars, open air spaces such as parks and applauding the British government for wasting time in Bangkok whingeing to foreign government that they too should ban smoking.
As a councillor you should realise that these Department of Health dictats and massive PR inititives pull regulatory services officers away from the work they are supposed to be doing and turn them into the alcohol and tobacco police. If the DOH had their way your environmental health, trading standards are licensing department would do nothing but their dirty work. The DOH are but onew stakeholder in local authority regulatory services, yet when old windbags like you jump on the bangwagon they end up with no choice but to give up investigating complaints from members of the public, give up dealing with other stakeholders, and concentrate all their time on drinking and smoking.
What exactly are the chances that Cruddas would have been offered the "Minister of state for trade and investment" at the "Department for Business and Enterprise".
Gary Elsby stoke-on-trent said:
July 3, 2007 1:28 PM | permalink
We all know it to be the right thing to do, but has it gone a little bit too far? No, I hear you say.
Well, I'm one of those that will be fined £2500 if you smoke next to me under my roof.
I'm OK about this being 5'-10" tall and all that (protestant and socialist, favourite colour is green).
However, my duty of care ia apparently no more towards my fellow man as he sits in his car smoking out of the rain and cold.
Even a bus shelter is illegal, even if not for buses or non-smokers, just for smokers to smoke in.
A bit brutal and no room for imagination to make things a little bit more pleasant for those who harm no one but themselves.
And that is the way it is today. The 50% rule on shelters is to excesive.
NB. This advice is free. No one asked for it and no one wanted it but hey! What the heck,Harriet won, that's all that matters. Power to the people! Well at leat to Brown's mates at least.
July 2, 2007 10:36 PM | permalink
When I went for lunch today in the City Centre, there were still about a dozen people smoking. The landlord just ignored them!