‘In about five or 10 years from now, people will be amazed that we ever allowed smoking in public places, because we've got a smoke-free generation growing up, “ says Pat Karney, the NHS Director of Smoke Free Greater Manchester.
For those of who grew up in the “golden age” of the British pub – before the smoking ban of 2007 removed the fug and replaced it with fresh air – that's a statement which even now seems a little far-fetched.
But our attitude towards smoking has changed beyond recognition since legislation designed to safeguard workers in public places came into force. Who now truly misses the idea of arriving home from the local wearing clothes polluted with the stench of somebody else's fag smoke? How many bar workers would exchange the clean atmosphere of today for those purple clouds of ever-present smoke?
Even the gaggle of smokers congregating outside the front door no longer induce the kind of second glance which would once have been the natural response to any kind of crowd.
For Coun Karney – whose role as a Manchester councillor also gives him responsibility for safeguarding the vibrancy of the city centre – there must have been a risk of interests in conflict.
But he insists both roles have been similarly successful and that even the most ardent fans of tobacco are now coming round to his way of thinking.
“Seventy nine per cent of smokers support smoke free legislation in Greater Manchester, “ Coun Karney says, citing the results of a survey commissioned by the NHS and carried out by the SMSR survey company.
“The national figure is about 55 per cent. It's probably one of the highest rates of support in the country.”
The debate which preceded the introduction of the 'smoking ban' in England on July 1, 2007 split people roughly into three camps: those that supported it, those who felt that the status quo should remain intact and those who favoured a partial ban, with sealed-off smoking rooms available in pubs that wanted them.
While the legislation impacted most heavily on public houses, it covers all public places. Bingo halls have witnessed a similar revolution.
Architecturally speaking, the licensing landscape has changed too. Those pubs which have survived are now likely to have a smoking shelter, some of them grandiose affairs which have taken the concept of allowing the outside to be inside about as far as it's possible to go.
Inevitably, many pubs haven't survived – their fates largely sealed by the combined impact of the smoking ban and cheap supermarket beer offers encouraging drinkers to stay at home. According to the British Beer & Pub Association, there are now 52,400 pubs in Britain, a drop of some 6,100 hostelries since 2005.
In the second half of 2009, the BBPA reported that closures were running at 39 a week, which has slowed down from a rate of 52 pubs a week in the first half of 2009. Mark Hastings, director of communications for the BBPA, says the fragile state of the economy has also played a part in pub closures, which have now slowed to a rate of around 30 per week.
“The economy is beginning to improve,” he explains. “And that has been the principle driver for pub closures as well: the downturn in the economy. It's difficult to say which closures were a direct result of the 2007 ban. The introduction of the smoking ban coincided almost completely with the start of the downturn in the economy.”
Dave Perkin, who owns 10 venues across the north west, including Manchester’s Frog and Bucket comedy venue and a number of community pubs, says the impact has largely depended on location.
“It has affected the community pubs, the traditional local, where a chap finishes work, has a pie and a pint and a cigarette before he goes home.
“But some premises have improved. There's been an increase in food, as well as a pleasant environment for staff and customers.”
Perhaps of most importance, however, is the potential for major improvements in public health. A recent study carried out by researchers at the University of Bath found a 2.4 per cent reduction in the number of emergency admissions for heart attacks 15 months after the smoke-free legislation. Whether it's a direct result of the ban or not, there are statistics to suggest that lives are being saved.
“Five years ago, one in four people in Greater Manchester smoked,” Coun Karney adds. “We’re expecting figures to come in under 20 per cent in about a month's time. Our mission is to bring it down to one in 10 people smoking.”
There's little doubt that life in Greater Manchester's changed forever with the beginning of the smoking ban. But three years on, who wouldn't raise a glass to a law which made pubs more palatable to thousands of people, and brought untold health benefits all at the same time.
» What do you think? Are pubs better or worse placed to be as a result of the smoking ban? Send your comments to postbag@men-news.co.uk or Postbag, M.E.N., 1 Scott Place, Manchester, M3 3RN.
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more phoney figures, more rubbish statements to try and justify thier disciminative dictatorship smoking ban.
IS THERE NOTHING PAT KARNEY DOES NOT HAVE HIOS FINGERS IN, LOOKING AT WHAT THE MEN PRINTS WITH HIS NAME I DO THINK HE IS TRYING TO BE GOD, AND (CLIF E) TOTALLY AGREE WITH YOU.
Nothing surprises me anymore Doctors for years have been telling people that smoking causes a lot of health problems and everybody ignores them? people ignore good advice im glad we have people like pat karney to save the lives of our children.Ive got a mate of mine that had his leg amputated because of diabetes and the doctors told him to stop smoking or loose another limb? he still smokes ,another pal had a pacemaker fitted and the doctor told him to loose weight,? guess what he eats more and is struggling to breath.people wont do anything unless they are forced to do these things...WELL DONE PAT KARNEY.Just think how many people you have saved........
[quote name=Zingo, Manchester]Nothing surprises me anymore Doctors for years have been telling people that smoking causes a lot of health problems and everybody ignores them? people ignore good advice im glad we have people like pat karney to save the lives of our children.Ive got a mate of mine that had his leg amputated because of diabetes and the doctors told him to stop smoking or loose another limb? he still smokes ,another pal had a pacemaker fitted and the doctor told him to loose weight,? guess what he eats more and is struggling to breath.people wont do anything unless they are forced to do these things...WELL DONE PAT KARNEY.Just think how many people you have saved........[/quote]
Yes sir, no sir, three bags full sir.
"But three years on, who wouldn't raise a glass to a law which made pubs more palatable to thousands of people, and brought untold health benefits all at the same time."
Me for one. I have been a non-smoker for a very long time but I do not welcome a state of affairs when busy bodies like Pat Karney tells us how to live our lives.
The "untold health benefits" are unproven and are statistically insignificant and the case about harm caused by second hand smoke is totally bogus. The Bath University study suggesting a 2.4% reduction in AMI is based on pretty flimsy evidence and does not even take into account the explosion of statin use in recent years.
"their fates largely sealed by the combined impact of the smoking ban and cheap supermarket beer offers encouraging drinkers to stay at home. According to the British Beer & Pub Association, there are now 52,400 pubs in Britain, a drop of some 6,100 hostelries since 2005."
Not to mention inflated prices for residential property and the continued campaign against drink driving, both of which have probably had as much effect on the fate of pubs, especially in rural locations.
I'd like to know when they started using Zyclon-B in cigarettes instead of tobacco, given the overplayed hysteria served up by these health freaks, and I often wonder just how we have survived as a human race if tobacco is as dangerous as these people imagine it is. Personally, I find the dull, humourless, thin lipped, pasty faced white wine spritzer brigade far more offensive than the average smoker..and I don't smoke.
Pubs are falling like domino's , there was no need for a total ban other than for the likes of councillor Karney to satiate in his, " the world runs my way or no way ". Sour faced slapped ar$e of a man.
He knew that left with a choice most pubs and clubs would allow smoking....and still would given a choice.
I am not, and never have been, a smoker. I also suffer slightly with asthma during hay fever time BUT I was against this blanket ban and I agree with others that the dangers of passive smoking have been greatly exaggerated. This ban, and the intensified random breath testing are slowly but surely killing off licenced premises. A separate smoking room should have been allowed instead of this total ban. I grew up in a family where my Dad smoked, my eldest sister and my brother. My wife, of 40 years smokes. Here in Ireland, they wonder why tourism has declined. I think the answer is simple. The old relaxed laid-back Ireland so much loved throughout the world is steadily being replaced by a country, like the U.K, where tourists can no longer unwind with a cigarette, Monday-morning drivers are being randomly breath-tested, thus stopping most people going out on a Sunday evening, much of the beautiful contryside is being replaced by new roads, thatched cottages have almost entirely disappeared etc.
I know that many people will jump on me regarding passive smoking, as after all the late Roy Castle, a great entertainer, died from cancer which he blamed on smoke=filled clubs where he appeared. Of course there`s some danger attached to smoking. But has the danger become magnified? Are we not foolish to try to remove every last risk to our health? I often wonder how the NHS (wish we had it over here, where you have to pay even to visit the doctor) would cope if people lived a lot longer, when it cannot cope now. Are we going to continue to have our lives ruled by a Nanny State? Wasn`t it Samuel Johnson who said that the inn is Man`s greatest invention? Or words to that effect? Well, now that so many people are drinking at home thanks to high tax on alcohol, the smoking ban and random breath testing, "Man`s Greatest Invention" may soon disappear and social life, already in decline, will become ever more home-oriented and solitary. I fear for old people in future whose only real contact with others is over a pint down at the local pub, when so many "locals" are having to close down.
Ignoramus, Manchester
Its not about "Yes sir no sir" Just think how many people have been saved by the drink driving laws or the seatbelt laws,The drivers at the time also had the same responce as yourself "We are loosing freedom to do what we want" You talk through your backside.These rules save peoples lives.If people could think for themselves we wouldnt need people like pat karney to tell us smoking in the same room as children and others costs lives (second hand smoke).
Zingo: "Its not about "Yes sir no sir" Just think how many people have been saved by the drink driving laws or the seatbelt laws,The drivers at the time also had the same responce as yourself "We are loosing freedom to do what we want" You talk through your backside.These rules save peoples lives."
The drink drive laws have probably saved many.
The seat-belt laws have probably, on the whole, resulted in very little, if any, reduction in deaths on the road and have almost certainly resulted in the deaths of and serious injury to, many pedestrians, cyclists and other road users who otherwise wouldn't have been killed. But nannying busy-bodies like you don't really care about that, do you?
Pubs and public buildings are far better after the ban. I agree with Karney that in a few years time people will be surprised that smoking was ever allowed in such establishments. It has encouraged a couple of my friends to give up, and to date they have managed to keep it up.
Try climbing out of his rear end, that way you might be able to see this smoking 'ban' for exactly what it is.
the death of Diana, that prove beyond doubt that wearing seatbelts is compulsory for very good reason, it saves lives.
This is echoed time after time.And idiots like black flag have no idea.
After working on vehicle recovery/repair for 30 years and seeing the damage caused to people not wearing seatbelts.Im glad that people are enforced to wear them.
Zingo: "the death of Diana, that prove beyond doubt that wearing seatbelts is compulsory for very good reason, it saves lives."
No it doesn't. Only a total idiot would claim that one incident proves a general principle.
"This is echoed time after time.And idiots like black flag have no idea."
I am clearly far more intelligent than you. You should follow the advice you give to others and pay attention to people like me who clearly know far more than you do.
Black Flag
"If someone claims to be enlightened, but acts smug or superior, they're probably just fooling themselves"
Zingo: "If someone claims to be enlightened, but acts smug or superior, they're probably just fooling themselves"
Zingo: "idiots like black flag have no idea."
Do the words "pot" and "kettle" mean anything to you?
"If people could think for themselves we wouldnt need people like pat karney to tell us smoking in the same room as children and others costs lives (second hand smoke)."
The evidence that second hand smoke is harmful has largely been discredited. Even the U.S. EPA's skewing of its own gold standard Confidence Interval (CI) down to 90% still left the evidence of harm floundering.
In 1998 the U.S. Federal Judge William Osteen vacated the EPA's 1992 study, declaring it "null and void." And
He observed that there was "a culture of arrogance, deception, and cover-up at the (EPA) agency" the second hand smoke scare is 'ideological' not epidemiological.
And to add insult to injury (on freedom) the search for the causes of lung cancer in non-smokers has been compromised by this blind ideology. But of course this matters not to the control freaks of government, local authorities and health agencies.
In tens years time people will ask what a pub was.On the seat belt debate,the main reason stated for introducing it was so the emergency services did;nt have to pick your remains off the road,and the general public didn't have to see severed heads rolling down the street.
Something really wrong here! A city which bans smoking and promotes all night drinking and homosexuallity! Strange morals indeed!
Im a non-smoker -
but I do believe that certain designated pubs should be allowed to have smoking rooms with chambered doors and high spec air conditioning, the non-smokers can have the choice of whether they want to enter that pub or not.
This policy has ruined societies and I particularly feel for the older guys who only had the local as there only venture outdoors. It is all they have had all their lives and to just take it away must be awful for them. It is no coincidence that pubs have been dropping like flies since this law came into effect.
These older fellas can't sit in on their laptops on facebook or other cyber worlds every night as the government appears to be wanting society to do so - it's a crazy situation and the world is changing rapidly, it is more cost effective and safe if we mould the way government appears to be shaping us. Societies have been destroyed and its the old timers I feel for.
Facist bully boys!
[quote name=Zingo, Manchester]the death of Diana, that prove beyond doubt that wearing seatbelts is compulsory for very good reason, it saves lives.
This is echoed time after time.And idiots like black flag have no idea.
After working on vehicle recovery/repair for 30 years and seeing the damage caused to people not wearing seatbelts.Im glad that people are enforced to wear them.[/quote]
How old are you? Every story you give us a new career. You managed pubs all over manchester for 30 years, you've been a taxi driver for 30 years and now a mechanic for 30 as well. Are there any im missing?
If everyone had your work ethic this deficit wouldn't be a problem!
I am so glad that their is a smoking ban. People argue about their right to smoke, but what about my right to not breathe your smoke?
Maybe all the smokers can go sit in a room and smoke themselves to death. Then we wouldn't need a smoking ban.
Andy139: "Maybe all the smokers can go sit in a room and smoke themselves to death. Then we wouldn't need a smoking ban."
I think the point is that many of them would like to, but the law impedes them.
Andy139 wrote. "I am so glad that their is a smoking ban. People argue about their right to smoke, but what about my right to not breathe your smoke?
Maybe all the smokers can go sit in a room and smoke themselves to death. Then we wouldn't need a smoking ban."
You are into very dangerous territory when you apply the principle of one right trumping another. In that scenario we would all end up with no rights. For instance, if as a pedestrian my rights to walk without danger of being put at risk by motorists or cyclist were applied then by your principle no cars or bicycles should be allowed.
Silly and dangerous way of thinking.