I was intrigued to read the letter from Stephen Bale of Pembroke in last week's MA about bus shelters. Believe it or not, I think he's right!
A careful examination of a shelter outside our local supermarket shows that more than 50% of the "wall" space is enclosed by glass. True, there is a six-inch gap all round the bottom, presumably to allow for sweeping up the cigarette butts! However, one has to look at the smoke-free regulations to see what the definition of "partially-enclosed" actually is.
The fact that there is a gap in any wall area, other than a door or window, does not exempt the glass partition as a wall. It is necessary to carry out a proper measurement of the total square footage (yes, I can still say that) of the four sides of the shelter, to establish whether it complies with the regulations.
So, if the shelter is 10 feet long by six feet wide by seven feet high, the total wall area will be 224sq ft. There is indeed a wide opening in the front wall and a similar opening in the back wall, but the ends are more or less full height. It is clearly more than 50% enclosed.
But is it an exempt structure? The government has recently published the smoke-free exemptions regulations, which cover both buildings and vehicles. I have looked carefully through these, but I cannot see anything about bus shelters being exempted. I think this means that bus shelters in Wales should have no smoking notices and the bus companies could be fined for failure to put them up, as the ban is already in effect.
As for permitting smoking, that's going to be a bit more difficult, as these "premises" are not specifically manned, and there is a defence of reasonableness contained in section eight of the Health Act. I do not think bus drivers would be in a position to park their vehicles and remonstrate with errant smokers, even if they wanted to!
Today's Welsh problem is tomorrow's English one. The Health Secretary wants everyone to engage with the smoking ban in a spirit of co-operation and with proportionate responses. But here is yet another example of how even the most straightforward pieces of legislation can have a subtle twist in the tail.