To think that smoking in a cafe garden is selfish?

[cupkakesandkittens]

I was in a cafe for lunch earlier, beautiful weather so sat in the garden at the back to eat, and there were a few people smoking as they ate/drank.
I understand that it's an outdoor space, and it's legal, but to smoke in such close proximity to other people who are enjoying a meal, is just selfish.
I also understand that I could have sat inside, but I didn't want to sit inside on such a nice day.
It just really irritates me, can they not last 30 mins or an hour without a fag?

Thanks HiddenMeaning. I'm feeling particularly hateful toward cigarettes and hate the sanctimonious "we are only doing what's legal" argument.

I don't like going to restaurants or cafes with small children running about round the tables but I don't think their parents should have to move

"I still think that if smokers (as a group) had been more thoughtful of others there wouldn't be a smoking ban."

This is amazingly naive

Buckinbronco

Naive, quite possibly, but I am old enough to have seen the contempt that some smokers have held non-smokers in.

You reap what you sow.

Boney - I still think that if smokers (as a group) had been more thoughtful of others there wouldn't be a smoking ban.

In the latter half of the 20th century, few people were that bothered about being around smokers. The massive change in public opinion has been quite deliberately manufactured by tobacco control.

The real reason for the smoking ban was to nudge more smokers into quitting. In order to get it (and other tobacco control measures) to fly as an idea, it was necessary to denormalise smoking, stigmatise smokers and 'spoil their identities':

Several authors have suggested that Erving Goffman’s classic analysis of stigma and its resultant “spoiled identity” is consonant with how the meaning of smoking has changed in societies with widespread tobacco control. Goffman described stigmatisation as the transformation “from a whole and usual person to a tainted, discounted one”, writing that “Stigma is a process by which the reaction of others spoils normal identity”.

So I think your statement is the wrong way round. If tobacco control had not decided that bans were the way to go to increase quit rates, smokers (as a group)* would not have needed to be presented to the public as selfish and inconsiderate.

There's a whole other discussion to be had about how successful denormalisation is as a strategy, what the unintended consequences are, why stigmatisation is seen as a bad and dangerous thing everywhere else within public health and whether the cost to human dignity is worth the increasingly diminishing returns of this strategy on smoking prevalence.

• It's important to note that we are both talking about smokers as a group. In your analysis, smokers are mostly inconsiderate but I'm assuming you are allowing for some smokers who are considerate. In my analysis, smokers are actually mostly considerate but as with any other group, you'll get the occasional inconsiderate arsehole.

PlentyOfPubeGardens

In your analysis, smokers are mostly inconsiderate but I'm assuming you are allowing for some smokers who are considerate. In my analysis, smokers are actually mostly considerate but as with any other group, you'll get the occasional inconsiderate arsehole

Yes, some smokers are considerate, but I would put them in the minority. Most were not deliberately inconsiderate (some were), but some smokers have no idea as to the amount of work that they have caused non-smokers, in that they have left non-smokers to pick up the slack when they went for a smoke.

Nor have smokers taken in to consideration other medical needs or that (when there were restaurants which allowed smoking) that not everyone enjoyed a meal with plumes of blue smoke being wafted over them.

It may well have been a manufactured move to people quitting but some smokers and their attitude to others made that move very very easy.

HiddenMeaning - that article is balanced and very honest about how it's impossible to put figures on most economic costs and benefits of smoking. However, it draws heavily on the 2010 Policy Exchange estimate and while it also cites some criticisms of that report, it misses a lot out. There's a great analysis here. It's written by a right-wing, pro-smoking libertarian but the analysis is sound and in the 6 years since publication I've not seen it refuted.

The conclusion of the article you linked is not that smokers are 'probably a drain', it's that the calculations are too complex to determine and rely on too many dodgy estimates. I'm with Snowdon on this: From a strictly economic perspective, the government's ideal citizen is someone who works all their life, pays a lot of tax and then dies not too long after retiring. Smokers, for instance.

I'm absolutely with you on this: Regardless of the maths I think I'd rather have less people dying young from lung cancer etc and pay a bit more tax.

100,000 people die every year in the UK from smoking. That's half of all long term smokers. They lose on average a decade of life. The majority started smoking as children and simply can't stop, despite the health consequences and massive social stigma. Most smokers have someone in their family who has died prematurely or who is living with the health effects of smoking because smoking runs in families. I've lost several family members and currently have two close relatives who are unwell from smoking. I'm hoping that I've switched to vaping in time to prevent me from following them but I know things can crop up years down the line.

I spend about half my time on MN sticking up for smokers and the other half cheering people on who are trying to quit. This probably confuses some people We don't need BS made-up economic arguments against smoking. Or BS arguments about the massive dangers of being nearby a smoker in the great big outdoors. Or BS rat tissue studies on the theoretical risks of third hand smoke. We don't need to continually stigmatise smokers as selfish stupid bastards. The death toll is surely enough. Lots of us love someone who has ended up as a long-term smoker. Lots on here are still long-term smokers themselves.

I'm just interested in what works, to help smokers quit for their own health and wellbeing, because contrary to popular opinion smokers are people with worth, and the vast vast majority of the harm from smoking affects smokers themselves. Shame and stigmatisation have stopped working and are now actively causing harm by making the remaining smokers feel shit about themselves and so less likely to care about their own health, and less likely to seek help because they're too ashamed.

The way to go, IMO, is lots more harm reduction (vaping, long-term NRT) and lots of non-judgmental NHS help (sss are not actually bad but smokers are still put off because they fear being nagged at or judged yet again) Everybody can help with this by not automatically being a cunt to smokers and taking a moment to consider that they are dealing with a complex addiction they'll likely have had since childhood and which will affect them several orders of magnitude more than it will affect you.

Hidden sorry for using your post as a spring-board for a bit of a speech

in that they have left non-smokers to pick up the slack when they went for a smoke.

Calling bollox on this. Never in my working life have I worked anywhere that smokers got extra breaks. Some people fart about at work. Some are smokers, some are non-smokers. Ways of farting about vary. If this is happening where you are it's a management/HR problem and not yet another shit thing to blame smokers for. And if it's happening/has happened in the past it's a cost to business for being shit at management, not a cost to you, the tax-payer.

Nor have smokers taken in to consideration other medical needs or that (when there were restaurants which allowed smoking) that not everyone enjoyed a meal with plumes of blue smoke being wafted over them.

Not sure what 'other medical needs' means. Do you mean the people who have specific health issues that are made worse by being around smoke? They are worth considering of course, as are people with allergies to various foods, animals and plants. Personally, I enjoy meals out more now people don't smoke indoors. I think smoke-free restaurants could have been achieved through commercial pressure rather than treating smokers like sub-human shit though.

It may well have been a manufactured move to people quitting but some smokers and their attitude to others made that move very very easy.

It absolutely was manufactured. Here is a picture of how the WHO views smokers. This trickles down and trickles down until the naice non-smoking public think it's all about them and their right to never see a smoker or be offended by a whiff of smoke anywhere. It's not. It's smokers who are dying in massive numbers and the current strategy is doing more harm than good. It's costing lives. What can we do about this sorry attitude amongst non-smokers? (NANSALT, obvs)

PlentyOfPubeGarden
Hidden sorry for using your post as a spring-board for a bit of a speech

My pleasure I thought your post was interesting, balanced and thought provoking. ( are you sure you should be on Mumsnet )

Although it's clearly important try and work out the different things that motivate people to quit smoking I'm really curious what makes youngsters start smoking these days. It seems such an odd thing to choose to do. I can see why people drink and even why they might take drugs but I fail to see why anyone would start smoking. It baffles me.

PlentyOfPubeGardens
"Calling bollox on this."

then you have been very lucky.

plenty agree with you in regards to work.
No job i have ever done have smokers got extra breaks, ever.
From retail, booies, to banking never has a smoker been given an extra break or time

Bookies* even

Boney.. there was uproar at my work recently when people realised smokers got two breaks in the morning and two in the afternoon. These were there only breaks.

So by 10am when people had made two drinks... They soon shut up when they were asked where they were going when they got up to make there third drink at 10.30am. Two breaks didn't seem so bad then!

I have under no illusions that people/posters have different experiences to me when it comes to smokers and breaks.

Kali

Have you worked in every industry? neither have I but I have seen smokers take extra breaks or just longer breaks.

HunterHearstHelmsley

Are you saying that the smokers aren't also on their 3rd coffee by 10:30?

Peoples experiences are different, so call "bollox" or whatever if you like, but you haven't been the person stood at the end of a machine (not getting paid extra) because the smoker is still having their start of work fag in the smoke hole.

And yes it may be poor management but when the manager in charge is the sat next to them in the smoke hole its only part of the problem.

No not every industry obv, but definitely a varied one.
Smokers did not get away with having an extra or longer break at any of my old jobs.

My experience is the same as yours boneyback. The smokers got extra breaks in a couple of jobs I worked in. At one point I took to going out and sitting with the smokers when they took a fag break, but I was pulled up for it as I wasn't smoking and told to go back to my desk .

Yep, management / HR problem, as I said.

Alasalas2 - HR were always saying I didn't take enough break time as its the law or something.

Yes it's law and it comes under H&S legislation which means any decent employer will be making sure you are not prevented from taking your breaks because you can go to an employment tribunal for H&S breaches even if you've worked somewhere for less than 2 years. They're covering themselves.

From here: Adult workers are entitled to eleven hours consecutive rest per day, and a minimum 20 minute rest break if their working day is longer than six hours. Adolescent workers are entitled to 12 hours consecutive rest per day, and a minimum 30 minute rest break if they work for longer than four and a half hours

and here: If you have been dismissed because you took action about a health and safety issue, you can make a claim for automatic unfair dismissal.

Yep, management / HR problem, as I said.

just ignoring that they are smokers.

just ignoring that they are smokers.

Yes. Like I 'just ignore' the fact that the colleague who persistently leaves 5-10 minutes early is a non-smoker, or the colleague who spends half the day farting around on FB is a non-smoker. I had a boss once who, every day, came back from luch, did about 10 minutes work then 'popped to the loo' for 1/2 hour with the newspaper. He was a smoker but his particular brand of farting-about-at-work didn't involve smoking.

-agree, that's a management problem not a smoker problem!
My oldest jobs, we would either be made to work the extra time we had taken on break, or it was taken from our time, didn't matter whether the person was a smoker or not.

PlentyOfPubeGardens

As I posted up thread I post about my experiences. (paraphrased)

This thread is about smokers, so I am posting about my experience with smokers, you have posted about yours. I don't expect them to match.

I believe that your experiences happened, but I think that you believe that mine aren't true.

I really couldn't care if smokers smoke in a pub garden or outside a cafe, but it really is about time they (some of them) stopped presenting themselves as victims or hard done by

No, I believe your experiences happened. I just think you're prejudiced against smokers and so are blaming their smoking for you having to 'pick up the slack', when in fact it's their general piss-taking at work that's the problem - something that all sorts of people do, whether they smoke or not.

It's easily done because people are positively encouraged to be prejudiced against smokers.

PlentyOfPubeGardens

Again this thread is about smokers, If you want to start a thread about general piss taking then go for it and I will state how much I hate that as well.

As for showing a bias against smokers, yes I do, but they are not preconceived, there are based on fact and experience.

Ooh are we doing thread police?

Strictly speaking, the thread is about whether it's rude to smoke in a cafe garden, but you've already said, I really couldn't care if smokers smoke in a pub garden or outside a cafe, and you have then deviated to the topic of smoking breaks in the workplace.

If you want to start a thread about how generally horrible smokers are then go for it and I will explain once again how being shitty to smokers harms public health. I think we had one of those threads last summer after about the 20th 'I saw a smoker at an outdoor venue and am now outraged and worried I will die' thread in a week. It was lots of fun, as I recall.