Licensees make their voice heard on smoking ban
A last-minute flood of submissions from licensees will be heading to the Department of Health (DoH) on Monday as its smoking consultation draws to a close.
Hundreds of licensees from across the UK have taken the opportunity to join The Publican's own response, through both a joint postcard survey with Atmosphere Improves Results (AIR) which ran with The Publican Newspaper on August 15, and The Publican's own detailed submission.
The Publican is due to deliver its submission on Monday morning (September 5), which gives readers until the last minute to add their voice to the debate.
Publicans have also been sending in their own comments direct to the DoH, while separate responses have been going in from the Association of Licensed Multiple Retailers, the British Beer & Pub Association and the BII among others.
Licensees responding through The Publican's submission have broadly agreed that it would be wrong to ban smoking in pubs serving food.
A number of Publican readers said they would be forced to choose between allowing smoking or serving food, with a number opting to give up food.
Chris Gibbs of the Red Lion Inn in Kilmington, Warminster, said: "I will probably choose smoking and close at lunchtimes. A ban is not needed - let the public choose if it wants to be in a smoking area or not."
Respondents are also against membership clubs being made exempt. "If it's unhealthy, it's unhealthy everywhere," said Barbara Jones, of the Church House Inn in Congleton, Cheshire. "To be fair to all licensees it has to be to all premises."
Jane Reid, licensee at the Brown Cow in Hinderwell, near Whitby in North Yorkshire, said the penalties proposed by the government - including a £200 fine for licensees who fail to act to prevent smoking - mean people would be treated as "guilty until proven innocent".
ALMR chief executive Nick Bish said he believed the industry had put in a weighty response to the consultation.
"For the purposes of this consultation we needed the whole industry saying what it really thinks - and it has," he said.
"We have not tried to counter the arguments of the anti-smoking lobby but to come up with a sensible alternative that takes in the interests of all of our members, and to justify it with what the public generally wants. The will of the great British public is clearly moving towards some form of smoking restrictions."
A key point raised by the ALMR is the fact that the requirement for all pubs to display no-smoking signage would cost the pub industry more than £2m, or £40 per pub.
Instead, the association is arguing that only the few venues which would continue to allow smoking should be required to display signs advertising the fact.
"I think the government's proposals will be modified as a result of our submissions," he said. "But there will be serious restrictions on smoking before too long and operators have got to be ready for it. The government needs to give us a soft landing."
A spokeswoman for the DoH said the pub trade could now expect the Public Health Improvement Bill, setting out the government's plans for a smoking ban, to be published before the end of the year.
What Publican readers think
The following number of readers who agree with these statements:
- The law on smoking should be the same for clubs and pubs - 72%
- All licensed premises should be required to ban smoking at the bar at the same time - 58%
- Any licensed premises should be allowed to operate a separate smoking room, whether or not they serve food - 73%
- Small licensed premises should be exempt from the ban - 62%
- Premises that meet a clearly defined standard of ventilation should be permitted to allow smoking - 75%
Source: 249 respondents to The Publican/AIR postcard initiative (The Publican, August 15)
