Proposed ban a serious worry for sector

The industry has already had to endure a previous smoking ban from a previous Labour government, which wrought significant and considerable change on the sector.

Now while some might be able to make a case that the smoking ban in pubs, in the long term, has been to the benefit of the sector, opening up greater opportunities for food, giving pubs broader appeal to a wider range of consumers that didn’t want to go home smelling like an ashtray, in the short term it caused huge damage with operators experiencing huge drops in trade and some forced to close for good.

However, while I, with the benefit of hindsight, can see the longer term benefits for the first ban, a further ban on outdoor smoking seems heavy handed and unlikely to have any upside for a sector that is already struggling to pull in the punters at the moment.

Quite apart from the challenge of who is going to police the ridiculous ban, it's yet another piece of ill thought out legislation from a Government that runs the risk of being accused of nanny state-ism (if that’s a thing).

As Kate Nicholls of UK Hospitality rightly points out the Government “must also assess whether such a ban would achieve its aims of meaningfully reducing smoking or simply relocate smoking elsewhere, such as in the home”.

Pubs have faced a constant stream of challenges since the pandemic hit in the 2020 and it has felt like a roller coaster ever since.

The last Government showed little to no interest in supporting the trade outside of the first panic-stricken moment of the Covid crisis.

Sadly, this Government seems equally as determined to put the boot in once again, with supposedly well-intentioned attempts to improve public health, yet little consideration for the realities of the economic impacts of such actions.

This policy, should it be seriously being considered, needs to be rethought as a matter of urgency.