Minimum pricing shelved

As reported by the new-look Freedom2Choose.info website.

Since there is a legal dispute as to the competence of the Scottish Parliament on minimum pricing that will take years to sort out, the Scottish Licensed Trade Association would do well to focus its efforts in supporting our call for a review of the smoking ban. Paul Waterson and the Association clearly recognise the impact of the smoking ban on the hospitality trade.

Reviewing, and amending, the smoking ban is clearly within the competence of the Scottish Parliament.

Anti-ban protest reported in Palma

Hotel, bar and gaming industries forget their differences and protest the smoking ban in Palma, demanding modifications to the comprehensive smoking ban which they claim has cost some establishments up to 40 per cent of their takings and caused lay-offs and closures.

Has anyone been telling them that smoking bans don't cause a 40 per cent drop in trade – those that have witnessed it happening to them over the course of a few weeks – or that supermarket prices are to blame?

Bans are reversible if the will is there: don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

New professor annoys publicans

A professor of socio-management newly appointed by Stirling University has annoyed some publicans by stating that the smoking ban has had no clear adverse effect on the hospitality industry. The measured tones of Mark Daniels at the Publican describe this conclusion as 'rude', while the Pub Curmudgeon does a bit of digging on the new professor showing a clear career interest in smoking restrictions. (This includes vice chairmanship of  Cancer Research UK's Tobacco Advisory Group: you need to be on message if you want any money for your research from them.)

Professor Bauld is clearly on the up in tobacco control. Apart from praising the smoking ban and hiding its deleterious effects on the nation's social economy, she has produced this magnificent document. It sets out by describing the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. On page 7 she tells the world that it needs a 100% smoke-free environment, that it must reject any form of air filtration or ventilation, that guidance will be provided on punishing those who infringe no-smoking laws and that implementing the FCTC's requirements is not resource dependent. Any country can do it, no matter how poor. Tell that to the Japanese.

Welcome to Scotland, Linda. I'm glad that your talents are becoming more widely recognized.

Small bar exemptions to Dutch smoking ban formally announced

A formal announcement in the Dutch parliament confirmed that there will be an exemption to the smoking ban (first reported on this blog here), to include any bar below 70 square metres and without employees. Fines so far issued will be allowed to lapse, meaning that the ban, for small one-operator businesses, is effectively in tatters.

This development is the result of determined opposition and effective lobbying from the Dutch hospitality industry . These people have not given up the fight, and will move on to defend the entire hospitality industry's right to entertain its customers properly.

Respect!

Barbados: anticipate the opposition!

Barbados will see a smoking ban from 1 October, and the local branch of the World Health Organisation, the Pan American Health Organisation, wants to ensure we are not under any misunderstanding about the necessity for comprehensive bans as opposed to any other form of solution. Their new publication Anticipate the Opposition is as predictable as the arguments it tries to refute, not least in its characterisation of all those who oppose the smoking bans as fronts for the tobacco industry:

Myth 1. Environmental tobacco smoke is just a nuisance.
Wrong. It is not just a nuisance, it is a health hazard. It causes at least 200,000 deaths a year in workplaces alone ... [calculated from guesswork about the amounts of exposure involved, and more guesswork about other confounding factors].

Myth 2. Voluntary agreements offer 'courtesy of choice': it is possible to accommodate smokers and non-smokers.
Wrong. This ignores the serious health consequences of SHS ... [the consequences that are only guessed at].

Myth 3. Ventilation systems protect non-smokers from the effects of SHS ...
Wrong. The tobacco industry has promoted the installation and use of expensive ventilation systems and equipment in an attempt to accommodate smokers and non-smokers in the same indoor enclosed spaces. [The reason that this is a better health alternative than a smoking ban is that modern equipment cleans air very effectively, not only of smoke but of other airborne pollutants. Getting rid of smoking only gets rid of the smoke but as many people will testify the air in pubs can still be very stale. Not surprisingly this paragraph refers to particles being 'deposited on furniture' before it can be ventilated.]

Myth 4. Smoke-free environments will never work.
Wrong. SFEs are widely supported by smokers and non-smokers, and if rightly enforced they work by protecting people from exposure to SHS. [They don't protect people from any other airborne pollution. On enforcement the levels of fine against landlords 'allowing' smoking are 50 times the fine for breaking the ban. In Barbados the ratio will be smaller, but still a significant deterrent to landlords who wish to accommodate their existing customers.]

Myth 5. SFEs result in lost businesses to restaurants and pubs.
Wrong. [followed by claims that all the 'good' studies find the overall economic situation unchanged for the hospitality sector and the economy. See opposite view from Michael Marlow, who claims not only that overall economic and hospitality trade figures mask large drops in specific sections of the hospitality industry, but also that bars are more likely to survive by flouting the ban, because it is in their interests to flout it.]

Myth 6. Smoking bans infringe smokers' rights and freedom of choice.
Wrong. Smoke free laws do not infringe anyone's rights. [Actually, they infringe everyone's rights. Even if their (declared) intention is about health, rights can be infringed as an unintended consequence. Smoking is legal, it is a recreational social pastime, smokers contribute plentifully to the public coffers and it is wrong to declare a public moratorium on a social activity, declare it's for the benefit of another group in society and deny that any wrong has been done to the smokers. This is infringement on the rights of hospitality traders and of the community in general (just as white civil liberties were oppressed by apartheid since it prevented them marrying black people ... they may not have cared about it in the main but their liberties were significantly curtailed by the doctrine of separate development).]