How green is your patio heater?

A friend of mine runs a medium-sized pub not far from here. He tells me that trade, especially for meals, has greatly increased since the smoking ban came into force. ... And of course more eaters encourages more drink sales :-)

Wouldn't be anything to do with cheaper supermarket booze, excessive taxation driving booze cruises, drink driving laws, large immigrant populations in certain areas who don't drink, lager louts, street violence etc would it? No - it has to be blamed on smokers.

My local does stipulate that children have to leave by 8:30pm, which is before I normally go there.

You have proof of that ?

Big pubs have been struggling and ultimately closing since the Coronation spurred people on to buy tellies and hire purchase made it possible for ordinary people to get their homes nicely furnished. You don't need to go out in the rain to a pub nowadays to experience good uphlostery, fitted carpets and central heating.

A are better off at home.

Apologies Re: previous cancelled post. Agent sent it of it's own volition.

You have proof of that ?

Big pubs have been struggling and ultimately closing since the Coronation spurred people on to buy tellies and hire purchase made it possible for ordinary people to get their homes nicely furnished. You don't need to go out in the rain to a pub nowadays (can't drive remember) to experience good uphlostery, fitted carpets and central heating. Oh and another thing, "pub grub" makes me want to Boke. Oven chips, lurid green frozen peas and a scoop of Spaghetti Bolognese /Moussaka/HotPot etc. which has been under a hotlamp for hours.

A man and a woman are better off at home inviting some friends round, nowadays.

But it does obey the laws of physics, it is diluted over a distance according to an inverse cube law, and most of it could be removed close to it's source by effective ventilation. This is what used to happen in the early '60s when I worked for a local electrician installing and repairing fans in pubs. This became more difficult to do effectively when the fad for open plan pubs came in.

I don't smoke BTW, and last week my stay in a pleasant hotel was disrupted because a constant stream of smokers in the lounge kept on opening the front doors to go out for a cig letting a howling gale in at zero Celsius. I'd sooner they were smoking in a corner somewhere.

DG

forest used to grow? If so, you may as well heat your garden with pyres made from orang utans.

Andy.

Surely its traditional to burn Art Students and Catholics?

To an extent I would agree with you - to the point that all of the factors that you have listed are probably contributors. Overall, it is that the licensed trade has not been providing what its potential customer base wants.

The amount of time that has passed since the introduction of the ban (even in Scotland) is not enough to assess the overall effects on trade

- the businesses are still going to have to work to make them more attractive.

In the longer term, the pubs will survive or not on the merits of their overall offerings and attractiveness to customers. For example, in California, when I first visited it more than 20 years ago, bars were smoking places and restaurants had smoking and for a while restaurants had smoking and non smoking areas. Eventually restaurants became non smoking and bars were smoking as long as they didn't serve food. Finally, all were made non-smoking and there were reports for a couple of years of a drop in overall trade. Some bars certainly closed while others adapted and thrived mainly by adding food and entertainment of various kinds.

Nowadays, the legislation has been extended so that it isn't permitted to smoke within 6 metres of a building entrance, so that people don't have to run the gauntlet of smoke by the door and litter of dropped part finished smoking materials.

Overall, those businesses that were going to survive have done, and those that were marginal have not. I am sure that the same will happen here, but it will take a good 5 years to be able to make a reasoned assessment.

In message , The Natural Philosopher wrote

That's down to the clientele that the landlord chooses to let into his establishment. If you want a pub full of people continually farting don't expect to see me, or, I suspect, the majority of people reading this thread, drinking there.

All the pubs that I visit appear to be completely vomit free - what kind of pub do you go to where you experience this problem?

That is already possible as the licensee can exclude children from his pub. For some publicans they may not have a choice as a children's certificate may not be issued.

If you find the behaviour of children in public places objectionable blame the irresponsible parents and not the children. It's the adults that should be banned.

All you need to do is to lock the children in a room full of smokers - the result will not be called murder because passive smoking does no-one any harm.

Sadly, it would not be called murder because none would die. Or at least not nearly quickly ENOUGH :-)

I wonder if its possible to open a private club where non smokers are banned?

Of course. But smoking would be banned.

There was someone (an old Fart) banned from his regular pub somewhere recently for excessive flatulence.

So THAT's why you drink at home...

Which rather neatly sums up the entire problem with the legislation...

The world has gone mad. I'd always thought Californians to be particularly stupid, but I never realised it had got that bad. Mind you, if you vote in Mr Schwarzenegger as govenor.........

Nobody is too bothered by it, and one simply doesn't see smokers congregating outside buildings - even large ones - ergo the long term legislation has had one of the desired effects and people just don't smoke as much any more. Well not tobacco anyway...

Governator, please. You should have seen the previous guy - a real nellie.

ObJoke.

A top movie producer was discussing his new project - an action docudrama about famous composers starring several top movie stars.

Stallone, Schwarzenegger and Bruce Willis were present.

The producers allowed each man to choose which famous composer they would portray.

Stallone said, "I'll play Beethoven."

Bruce Willis said, "I'll be Mozart."

Schwarzenegger said, "I'll be Bach."

And how did YOUR MP vote in the cigarette banning legislation?

Very droll....

He supported it. Not getting my vote again.