i would fricken BAN smoking at tables outside eating establishments

[ElizabethHoover]

Its just GOPPING.
Its like a nicotine based apartheid ( slight overstatement) where the TINY percentage of smokers (a sixth of the population) in the country force the rest of us inside to get away from their stench and litter.

GRR

YANBU. Smoking is vile and I just don't understand it (and I did occasionally smoke when I was younger but then realised it kills you). Smokers ruin sitting outside somewhere nice.

I don't smoke never have (only hash) but I like other people smoking socially

Most of the restaurants/pubs/cafes around here aren't that far from a road.

So I can't get fussed about a bit of fag smoke on the wind.

Having said that, I don't particularly like eating outdoors anyway.

You are happy for us dirty smokers to sit outside all winter. The outside is ours all year. Sorry about that.

I hate this! Smoking shouldn't be allowed anywhere near where people are eating!

I have to say I can't think of a time in the past where this has ever bothered me. If you're outside surely it only a bother if you're sitting quite close to and downwind of a smoker? I can see that being annoying if you're eating, but in that case you can just move or ask them to move or stop for a bit or just put up.... Banning seems like a nuclear option for what is only a problem in a very particular set of circumstances. Maybe there are fewer smokers in london so I don't realise the extent of the problem but if not I feel like stressing out about smokers outside is more detrimental to health and happiness than the actual smoke.

Oh God , not this again. Barely a day goes by without someone starting a filthy smoker thread.

It's legal, get over it.

TBF Punkrocker, it's public opinion that gets the law changed, just because it's the law, doesn't mean we have to like it. Homosexuality was illegal once and carrying a baby on your lap in the car and smoking in restaurants was legal once.

Can't you just tell the weather's improving when thread like this keep appearing

Thing is, even if smoking was banned in outside eating areas, you'd then get moans about another smoker just a bit further away - then one on the other side of the road - then no doubt someone in the next county. If you don't like it, campaign for a ban; if enough agree it will be done and if most don't you'll just have to live with it

Oh, and I'm an ex smoker too ...

I'm a smoker and those areas outside are used by me and other smokers all year.

If it got banned I simply wouldn't go out.

Pubs have struggled massive since the smoking ban, if the ban then went for outside areas as well then I could see many more pubs going under.

It's banned in Australia.

I love it.

(And no, the pubs and eating establishments are not struggling.)

Can't you just tell the weather's improving when thread like this keep appearing

Yep.

They're slowly overtaking the disabled toilets/P&C parking threads

And yet it's still only April.

Ah man it hasn't even been a week since the last load of meeping about smokers outside. At least space them out so people are fresh.

I don't smoke but I'm sick of the approbation aimed at people doing a perfectly legal activity outside.

We as non-smokers can eat inside, THEY can't (and smoke at the same time)

I've even seen idiots on Mumsnet saying they don't want Vapers outside or inside as it 'sets a bad example to children'

blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/peteroborne/100255698/the-smoking-ban-killed-the-british-pub-this-vandalism-is-labours-defining-legacy/

It's true that smokers go outside all through winter, then as soon as there's a bit of sunshine, the anti smoking brigade are outside in force with their hysterical whining. The filthy looks and frantic hand-flapping make them look like complete twats, imo.
Move if you don't like it. I agree, public opinion may lead to a ban in the future. But in the meantime, it's still legal, so get over it.

I'm a smoker - a very bloody considerate and tidy one, who smokes away from other people and always puts her fag ends in the bin.

But threads like this make me want to go and light up just for the hell of it.

Not sure if you are being deliberately GF with some of your recent posts OP but it's starting to read like that.

If you are that bothered why not campaign thru your MP or something constructive rather than getting aggressive on here.

I'm a non smoker and I'm not put out by smokers having a fag outside.

Peace and Love and all that.

"I've even seen idiots on Mumsnet saying they don't want Vapers outside or inside as it 'sets a bad example to children'"

Oh yes. Some do get an attack of the vapours about vaping!

Bet you don't moan in the winter when us smokers are outside... just because the sun's out doesn't why should we have to give up the spots we use all year?

Why do you want to sit outside OP? I like a table inside - warm in winter, air-conditioned in summer.

Aren't you terrified of contracting cancer from sun exposure as well as secondary smoking?

I agree with daisycahin01 fwiw.

But as far as we know,vaping isn't harmful,smoking is.

The thing is that if it made business sense restaurants would do it of their own free will.

But it doesn't. The kind of people who frequent pubs and restaurants are often more likely to be smokers. Look at how the smoking ban has absolutely decimated pubs in this country (alongside cheap supermarket booze of course).

If it was banned outside restaurants we'd have even more businesses going belly up and even more boarded up shops in our high streets. And nobody is 'forced' to sit in it. You can sit inside or choose somewhere that does have outside non-smoking. But really, for the sake of non-smokers who want to sit outside on the few sunny days a year we have it's really not worth business owners giving up the custom of smokers who will make use of it all year round to some extent.

Funny how these threads only pop up in the summer. No one moans at the smokers when it's pissing it down and freezing outside.

Think I said something like that on the last smoking outside thread.

Oh and I don't smoke.