Unrepentant smokers were recruited to take part in Procession - a parade designed to showcase Manchester life to the world - but their inclusion triggered a row between council bosses and festival organisers.
Artist
The festival team and Turner-prize winning artist Jeremy Deller, who created the piece of living art, advertised for smokers to take part.
But town hall chiefs were furious after learning of their involvement in the parade, which is being partly paid for by the taxpayer-funded Association of Greater Manchester Authorities - and flies in the face of public health campaigns.
Freedoms
Festival bosses refused to remove the smokers, saying it would infringe on artistic freedoms, but have now agreed to include health warnings in the parade, which will travel along Deansgate tomorrow.
It is understood they have agreed a compromise, which means an extra banner being on show which highlights the dangers of smoking.
Critics
Coun Pat Karney, NHS Director of Smoke Free Greater Manchester, has been one of the strongest critics of the artwork.
He said: "These dilettante festival artists think it's super-cool to promote smokers. I wonder if they would join me on the cancer and heart wards of Greater Manchester.
"The festival organisers are acting like agents of the tobacco industry. This shameful parade of smokers should never have been allowed to happen in Manchester.
'Mockery'
"Smokers have every right to smoke, but to do it on public money and in front of a family audience makes a mockery of all the work put in to improve the region's health."
The parade was branded a `waste of taxpayers' money' after the smoking element came to light and organisers were asked to remove it.
Coun Sue Cooley has asked for an enquiry into how much public money was spent recruiting the smokers.
Committee
She said: "I have asked that the scrutiny committee to look at why public money is being spent on this, in a city which has the highest number of deaths from smoking in the country.
"As an ex-smoker, I can say it's not about us preaching to people, but we don't need to throw money at this."
Cathedral
Former mill workers, boy racers, goths, fish and chip shop appreciators and Happy Mondays fans will also take part in the hour-long event, which will travel from Liverpool Road to Manchester Cathedral.
It is part of a series of events at the start of the two-and-a-half week arts extravaganza, expected to cost about £9.6m.
A spokeswoman for the festival said organisers were too busy to comment. Tweet
Comments
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Smoking is not illegal outside in the streets. If Karney is so concerned about children being influenced why does he not spend his time more usefully in removing smoking scenes from TV, or maybe having a go at the idiotic, and talentless Lily Allen, who smoked her way through her act at Glastonbury, while swigging alcohol, watched by children of all ages.
What on earth is Pat Karney on about? There's been a parade of smokers on the streets ever since the smoking ban.
It was the best form of advertising the tobacco companies could ever get.
I do not smoke but I do not see why smokers should be attacked all the time.
Dilettante is a long word for a politician form Harpurhey! The fact that smokers are being featured in the parade is perhaps better understood not as dilettantism but rather as iconoclasm, an attempt to mock the power and influence of the ruling bureaucratic class. People have grown tired of their masters and want change, they are seeking increasingly novel ways to rattle the cage bars of their betters.
The council should be pleased that smokers are taking part in the parade. Smokers are part of our community and their presence is a wonderful celebration of the diversity of that community.
The council is usually very keen on celebrating diversity.
My favoutite smoking scene is Frank Sinatra leaning on the piano, wearing a hat, drinking a burbon, smoke drifting around him,a fag in hand, singing,
"it's one for my baby, and one more for,... the road."
it's art, it's laying down an atmosphere to the song.
and no doubt Pat and his friends would want that banned from all videos,DVDs and wiped from the history books.
Lily Allen was doing nothing illegal, [ yet] so get over it.
and this parade sounds like a good time. and maybe they should play Bob Dylan's cough cough song, to bring a bit of deadpan humour to Pat's angry mob.
With the Grim Reaper leading the parade, so to let everyone know what the future holds for us all.
it's Manchester street art. calm down and enjoy it for what it is.
I was thinking of taking my seven year old daughter to see the parade. I'm taking her to Alton Towers now instead. Can I also say that it is not just the fact that people are smoking, it is the fact that this is glorifying it and making it look as though smoking is acceptable.....which it is most certainly NOT!!
"Light up,Light up,As if you have a choice...",springs to mind...Mr Karney,no matter what you do or say,you have become the interfering face of a nanny-state(wearing a Rangers top).
If a bunch of idiots wish to walk along the road smoking, that is their choice, but to somehow remotely consider it is interesting to watch them smoking, beggars belief !!
Freedom of choice ? what about the people who do not wish to see them ?
Smoking is a filthy habit, and people that smoke stink, as well as their house, it gets on other people's clothes, and it costs the NHS millions of pounds, Pat Karney is bang on.....
Maynard...your description could equally apply to alcohol,and its consumption.Though I havent heard Karney 'bang on' about that,especially when the Council promote its sale on its own doorstep in Albert Square...Please note I am a non-smoker,tolerant of others who are.
I may go just to look at Cllr Karney's cheery face.
I wonder if the there will be a health warning on every hot dog stand and ice cream vendor on the parade? Lets hope all those who hate anything that's not "on message" take themselves and there children to Alton Towers and live there forever. If they want a Disney world to live in then move to one. I may sink and my life my be repulsive to others but when the county asked me and my father to fight in the last two world wars we went fag in mouth and came back a built the welfare state that others say I'm a burden too. I'm fed up of tree hugging claptrap from a generation with nothing better on there mind than how things look and what things cost. The right of the individual to these sorts of people is something that that is only allowed when the majority think its right. That's no right but a puritanical society and we shipped that last lot off to America some time ago which is where you'll find most types Disney Worlds. Funny that in' it. Finishing off with pipe in month and a wonderful aroma around me.
Stockport Lad
'what about the people who do not wish to see them ?' Ummmm, don't go?
The most photographed float will be the smokers float, one guess where the camera loving Cll Karney will be. (hope he chokes on the diesel fumes)
Why doesn't Kommondant Karney just ban smokers from the parade. I've learnt to live with being excluded from pubs, I'm sure I can miss a group of people marching down Deansgate.
As well as being an unrepentant smoker, I'm also an unrepentant council tax payer. I'm sure if there were a group called 'Lesbian and Gay Tobacco Appreciation Collective' or the 'Kurdish Traditional Smokers Movement', they would get huge council funding.
Wonder what Karney would do if there were floats containing lepars,men dressing as women,AIDS carriers,bird and pig flue carriers and MRSA carriers,contracted in hospital? Probably encourage them! Smoking is a social habit demonising probably 25% of the population and they are classing it as though someone has released a biological weapon on Manchester! I used to smoke but have no objection to smokers,what I do object to is top grade social engineering by our resident Socialist freaks! We all choose our own way to die (Jack Higgins)
Karen,W manchester
Enjoy it'll cost you alot more than a walk around Our City!
I was thinking of taking my seven year old daughter to see the parade. I'm taking her to Alton Towers now instead. Can I also say that it is not just the fact that people are smoking, it is the fact that this is glorifying it and making it look as though smoking is acceptable.....which it is most certainly NOT!!
Maynard...your description could equally apply to alcohol,and its consumption.Though I havent heard Karney 'bang on' about that,especially when the Council promote its sale on its own doorstep in Albert Square...Please note I am a non-smoker,tolerant of others who are.
Mark Ratcliffe
+1, I too am a tolerant reformed smoker and not a hypocrite
Maynard Kitchener Lampwick Manchester
way back in 1978 we walked from Strangeways carpark to Alexandra park to
protest against people like you.
I would rather be offended against, than ban the offender.
do you understand that ??
no, thought not.
+1, I too am a tolerant reformed smoker and not a hypocrite
Mad Welsh Scotsman, Cadishead
So MAD Welsh....if you are no hypocrite why describe your self as reformed. If you think it's bad say so, stop playing both ends against. Mr Kitchener Publicans put in air fresheners after the smoking ban...They could smell how bad the non smoking public realy are.
Sorry MaD WELSH day 5. five days without one I am not sayin nowt...,.
Actually it is not a problem so far.
x
Why don't you look at the broader picture and save your comments until after the parade. The procession represents a cross-section of Greater Manchester society including (for example) Big Issue sellers, Ramblers and a Hindu bagbipe band. People smoke, thats reality whether you agree or disagree with the issue.