thoughts on the Irish smoking ban please?
141942
I was in Ireland last year and I loved the smoking ban. I realize that many like to smoke, but the smoke effects all. The pub life was much more enjoyable than previous visits. The smokers that complain the loudest are just not being reasonable towards others. They can go outside and smoke if it is that important to them.
429493
I am on your side.  All these sniveling little fairies can go to hell.  We have a right to smoke.  The worst of the group are these little assholes who used to be smokers and now feel the need to dictate to us where we go, what we do, and how we live.  People like you are what we need to make this country great again.  Thank you for taking the time to educate the morons that have replied negatively.
930457
I believe the ban is an extreme. Upon the face of it, it may sound healthy by those that oppose smoking, but in reality this sets the precident, and validates the ideation that citizens are incompetant to handle their personal freedoms and respect for their community. It opens pandora's box. Becareful what you wish for, you just might get it. \n\nI wonder if this type of "ban" and social acceptance is how Saddam got his start in Iraq with the peoples blessing?
73736
Published in the UK last week was a paper stating that if smoking was banned in pubs, then smokers would light up @ home more, endagering their family & children more. This was one reason put forward why smoking as yet to be banned their.\nMaybe not the best reason, but one the British Government counted as valid.
460501
As I live in Scotland, we've already got it.  As a smoker, I think it's ridiculous.  I have worked in bars for a long time to fund my studies and in my experience, the majority of people who work in bars and drink in them are smokers.  As it is, now we have to go outside to have a cigarette.  This has meant less people going to bars and as a consequence, hours have been cut and some people laid off already.  In addition to this, in most places you are not allowed to take your drink outside with you and this leaves many women open to drink spiking.  We have been told for years not to leave drinks unattended, and now we have to.\n\nThe whole situation is ridiculous and is tantamount to living in a fascist society.  It would be fine if they had allowed some places to remain smoking.  All they have done is restrict choice, and that shouldn't happen in a supposedly free society.\n\nEverybody I know, smokers and non-smokers alike, think along these lines.
279855
What customs in both Ireland and the UK is trying to do is to stop smuggling. They will have fixed an arbitrary amount of cigarettes on the assumption that only that amount could be for your personal consumption, any more and you must be selling them. I believe there was something recently in the European Court regarding drinks, which is similar.
784205
If it is anything like the law here in Massachusetts, It SUCKS. It is another step in our DICTATORSHIP government in becoming COMMUNIST. Please don't misunderstand me. To ban smoking in a restaurant is one thing. I say this as smoking CAN affect the taste of food and for a NON-smoker to have to sit there and try to enjoy a meal and be forced to breath the smoke from my cigar, well it isn't right. BUT Cigaretts and Cigars, and Pipes go with coffee or drinks. And to tell a person YOU can't SMOKE when you are in this bar is NOT RIGHT. I say put this question on a ballot and let the voters decide. WE the PEOPLE, should be able to say WE want smoking or WE don't want smoking. If WE the people decide what WE want or don't want then I could except the law if it passed. BUT for our DICTATORSHIP government to just make these laws and FORCE them down OUR throats I say again it is WRONG. Oh I don't even want to hear that the BAR-tender is being forced to breath second hand smoke. Thats is a BIG CROCK of chit. I mean if you are bothered by fire, then why would you become a fire-man. If you are bothered by guns, then why would you become a police man. The same applys to bar tending. If you are bothered by second hand smoke WHY become a bar tender? Sorry to have run off so long but this issue goes right up my backside.
584994
Being a non-smoker, I really like the idea.  The ban on smoking in bars and restaurants has been effect in NY (USA) for a few years now and I personally enjoy going out now.  I understand that smokers feel their rights are being infringed on, but those same smokers often do not take into account that they infringe on the rights who do not smoke to breathe clean air.\n   It is an issue that has no clear-cut answer, but I think that when an infringement or taking away of rights happens, it should be done to protect the health of people, which is what the ban is for.
915447
Really, this is a capitalist country. Competition and the free market are supposed to take care of everything. The point is, if people don't want to deal with smoke at a restaurant or bar, they'll go to a nonsmoking establishment. If the smoking establishment loses business they might consider banning smoking. That's how America works! You're totally right that it should be up to the individual owner. It's his own paycheck he's screwing with so he will make the right decision based on what kind of people patronize his place. It really pisses me off too that towns and states ban smoking.
640020
No it is not banned yet. It should be. COMPLETELY. Not here and there...but all over the world.\n\nTobacco Companies are behind the delay in banning fags. In reality..many people will lose jobs...starting from the poor farmers who grow tobacco to the chairmen of these huge companies.\n\nAs far as I see it smoking will never be banished from this side of earth.
376403
yes, this is a good idea because peoples health will be better and those who dont smoke will not suffer from second hand smoking. my mother smokes and it bothers me a lot because of the diseases and other problems she can get just from smoking. Also because since all the other drugs such as pot is illegal smoking is also a drug therefore it too should be illegal.
15628
I don't think that smoking should be banned in bars and in clubs. If they are banning things that are bad for you they wouldn't be able to drink there either. I think that if you are so health oriented you shouldn't be in the bar so if you don't want to be around smokers don't go in the bar. Drinking and smoking go hand in hand and some people that drink like to smoke only when they drink. I think it should be up to the bar owner. If the waitresses don't like being around it , get another job at a bar that doesn't allow smoking.
740868
Boy this forum just got polluted by anti-smokers, offering "words of encouragement", but they are just veiled statements of their preference.\n\nBar business really does hurt when bans are forced and nonsmoking is not the choice of the owner. Owners do make choices to be nonsmoking when they know their clientele demands it. It just depends on your clientele. However, at this time, there is NO CHOICE for the private business owner in this land of supposed liberty.\n\n"Studies" showing business improvement when a ban is FORCED on a business are full of cherry picked data including everything from CARRY OUT receipts to McDonald's to 5 star restaurants. There has never been a study for stand alone bars.\n\nSmokefree lobbyists offer hollow promises of "business improvement", but that is all they are. Promises. Columbus bars have taken such a hit and made many cutbacks including reduced hours and waitstaff, cutting out live entertainment, etc.. to just survive.\n\nColumbus bars also immediately built patios.What does that tell you? The clientele they want to keep INCLUDE the smokers. However, smokers resent having to go outside in the cold and being treated like some neo Jim Crow experiment and generally do not patronize bars in the winter months.\n\nIf you serve food, you may be able to salvage something concerning all of this.\n\nI am SO sorry I cannot be more positive about this, especially since you seem like a very nice person who is new to the bar business. I simply cannot and will not sugar coat the situation, though as that would not be kind either.\n\nI have seen my business drop ever since the Columbus ban went into effect, it was immediate and it has not recovered. I took my bands out of town and did well in the bars, but now that option looks very bleak also.\n\nYou will have to be creative on this one until another repeal comes up, just as I was forced to do and will have to think through yet another plan with this statewide antismoking wrench thrown in the mix. \n\nPerhaps you should consider even "going underground". The reason why not many bars have closed in Columbus is many are not following the ban and are just paying the fines. I am sure Smokefree Ohio being the fanatics they are have put in some stiffer fines knowing that a good deal of Columbus bars told Smokefree Columbus to rightfully go directly to hell.\n\nThe ones that have closed generally do not make the local papers as the media is biased toward the antismoking side.\n\nBars must join together again to get some exemptions. Don't worry antis, you will have many smokefree choices as you do now with a partial repeal of this draconian law. Forcing your will on ALL the businesses in Ohio was not wanted and was not appreciated.\n\nI hope you were aware before of this possibility of Issue 5 passing and promoted Issue 4. If not, please be informed when the next repeal vote comes up. It is your business.\nI am not assuming you didn't know, but I have run into bar owners and bowling alley owners in different areas of the state that ignored this thinking it could never happen.\n\nIt did, but with only 8%+ of the votes needed to pass. Plus the election turnout wasn't 100%. There is still hope. Get busy, talk to your alcohol vendors and see if they have a plan in place yet to help you weather the storm until Ohio wakes up and says "no" to fascism and social engineering of people who choose to use a legal product.\n\nBut you will never see an antismoking lobbyist in favor of what would really solve the problem. Making tobacco illegal would "level the playing field". As it is now, the antismoking cartel are just playing with private business owners livelihoods while gathering a comfortable paycheck. They will never favor tobacco prohibition as they would have to find an honest job.
874842
What good is having had a job when you die of cancer?\n\nWhatever makes you think that smoking bans hurt small business? In Ireland the pub owners griped like mad about the prospective smoking ban -- but once it was in place their business increased!\n\nThat might not happen in bars in America -- I haven't seen statistics or reports; but it seems to be happening in upscale restaurants in France and the USA.\n\nThe tobacco industry does not have anyone's sympathy. As far as I know, it's not lost significant sales domestic or foreign -- or if it has the latter has compensated for the former. And it's among the most highly mechanized industries anywhere. And the smoking ban is a long time coming and has been discounted in the market place and in the employment plans of most kids. I hope.\n\nI knew a tobacco farmer who despised his crop, but depended upon his quota in Georgia. Until he died. Of lung cancer.\n\nThe loss of jobs is due to globalization. The jobs went not to Mexico as Ross Perot predicted, but to China. The effects were compounded in the past 6 years by tax laws favoring the very rich and hurting the middle classes. What people complain about is that they can't raise families on the wages on offer for the jobs left: minimum wage (a minimum unchanged in ten years) jobs that are of interest only to illegal aliens who live an austere lifestyle crowded together in barren apartments so they can support families at home. Their jobs on the farms in Mexico were destroyed by NAFTA and American crop subsidies -- US crops are dumped in Mexico and Africa. (The African cotton farmers head to Europe. Or starve.)\n\nSo: don't take these issues out of context. Smoking has little or nothing to do with your premise about jobs.
706721
I grew up in the 60s and 70s in a family that smoked and none of us, not even one of us has died or gone to hospital for smoking related illness.  There needs to be a compromise on this issue, but when the people with money and nothing better to do than try to force everyone to be like they are set an agenda, the rest of us pay.  Where I live, a ban on smoking was recently passed (by a 7% margin, by the way, out of only 30% of registered voters weighing in), because these whiny, holier-than-thou control freaks couldn't be happy that we already had an ordinance requiring restaurants to have separate smoking sections with separate ventilation systems.  Now all the restaurants that invested all  that money in those separate rooms and vent systems are going to have to give them up to these jerks.  Recent talk shows have aired the voices of business owners saying that their business has suffered from the bans, while cities around them report increases, as those of us who still appreciate the concept of a free country drive to less fascistic communities to dine out.  Restaurants are private businesses and if someone can't stand the chance of smelling cigarette smoke, they most certainly do not have to go into them.  This no compromise attitude is very un-American, in my opinion.  Sadly, people these days usually just roll over when new laws go through and they'll just say, "OK, you took that right from me, at least I can still smoke in my car and house."  I just wonder how long that will be true. Hail Oceania!
35817
Definitely should be laws against this! No child should have to breathe in second hand smoke- it's cruel. Parents with any sense wouldn't smoke around their kids.
810616
YES!!! people say that business will boom due to the new law...not true!!! more lies. look at how many jobs were lost in canada at windsor due to their smoking ban. bunch of whiny crybabies always looking for ways to live longer. smokers have paid for many a building, and it was bad enough before when they threw us in a corner or outside to smoke...now we can't even smoke at all! i'm hoping my job (bartending in a dive bar) will hold out untill i'm finished with school....but i doubt it. if people can't even smoke in a dive bar, they'll stay home. all you self rightious people can rest easy and maybe live a couple more years  and find something else to cry about. i've got kids to feed and i 'm watching my job die a slow death on the clean air in the bar.