Smoking in outdoor dining areas should be banned - AIBU?

[Circlesandtriangles]

Sat outside a lovely cafe by the canal in the sun, lovely except for the wafting of some ladies cigarette smoke across the table. i probably am a bit unreasonable but I just hate smoke when eating. Seems a shame that to enjoy outdoor dining I need to suffer smokers second hand smoke. So...

YABU - Suck that second hand smoke up
YANBU - There should be no smoking where food is being enjoyed outdoors

It IS already illegal to smoke around doorways, you have to be a metre or 2, I can't remember.

Every year its the same thing on here. Personally I think if you don't like it then stay indoors , people moaning about smoking outside pubs are the worse! It's a bloody pub, there are people smoking outside all year round in all weather just don't go out there if you don't like it 🤣

The fact I can't go into the local supermarket without someone sat on the benches by the entrance and/or exit smoking away really pisses me off. Especially when I have my DC with me.

Even more so when I'm pregnant so can really do without second hand smoke when trying to do something necessary like a food shop.

I agree, just because it isn't banned, doesn't mean people can't be considerate. I wish they had smoking shelters where the smokers can huddle together, like in airports, and non smokers can avoid the secondhand smoke.

Don't even get me started on the people who walk past, smoking weed right in your face.

I confess to loving the smell of a pipe it brings back happy memories of my late FIL it's just comforting. Cigar smoke is pleasant too.

Yes, because we only get a few weeks of the year when we can enjoy eating outside, and inconsiderate smokers ruin it.

If they want to smoke outside the pub in November fine. There's no demand for the space then.
Smokers are the minority. The majority don't want to eat in a smelly smoky atmosphere, so smokers should use their cop on rather than mulishly insist on their 'right' to smoke.

Possibly because cooking smells are much less likely to be carcinogenic. Cigarette smoke is seriously detrimental to anyone breathing it in www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK53010/

Thing is, it does feel (to many smokers) a bit like the way Cheeky Fucker Tourists behave.

Genuine question to smokers:

You must know by now that the majority of people don't like someone smoking around them or their kids, and that as soon as you light up at your table people nearby are inwardly groaning and thinking 'oh no' or start preparing to leave.

Does that not bother you?

Although playing devil's advocate for a moment, I don't think I've ever seen a thread complaining about cooking smells from next door doing the same thing.

@TeapotTitties there are plenty of 'my neighbours are having a bbq and my life and home are ruined' threads. They get pretty popular for the brief glimpse of summer

Yanbu. On holiday wanted to sit outside for a meal but it was just a cloud of foul smelling smoke.

No because I never would do this.

The thing with us smokers is that they (the state) have been bullied and stigmatised and coaxed and incentivisted and patronised and rewarded and everything else you can think of to motivate us to change our behaviour.

The ones of us who are still going fall boardly into two camps. Those, like me, who are filled with self loathing for the fact they still fucking smoke and those who have constructed intricate and fragile webs of justification for it.

The thing is smoking is something you are hyper aware of now. I don't feel like I am doing something harmless I feel like I am a bloke with my willy out pissing in all directions and I am hyper aware of said piss and the impact it has on others. I believe the people in the second camp are just as aware but their due to their aforementioned web of justification they feel they are just. Indeed they feel they are, if not actively fighting for their rights, at least exercising them fairly. There is no talking to them.

In practice, yes, I make an assessment of what's reasonable in the circumstances and might well step away from the area to smoke. But the OP is about banning all outdoor smoking areas around cafes pubs etc, in order to accommodate the fussier type of non-smoker who spends a couple of days a year on the terrace/in the garden.

I feel similarly when a performative parenting troupe bundle into the beer garden in the first place, really.

Great post.

There is definitely an increasing number of smokers who go out of their way to avoid annoying non smokers.

But there is still a stubborn minority who have convinced themselves they are some kind of hard done by group banished out into the cruel wind and snow and anyone who objects to having to put up with the consequences of their addiction is just moany, intolerant etc.

If they haven't, by now, stopped defiantly lighting up and blowing smoke around wherever there is no actual ban then they never will.

Ban BBQ and bonfire smoke immediately. It is everywhere and it the smoke is toxic to those who cannot avoid it too. You know, the neighbour with asthma, or who has just put their washing out etc.

I suppose those who fire these things up are haughty judgmental non smokers, many of whom are on this thread too.

You're not being rational at all.

Your post is ridiculous.

I think I hit a nerve there....

No you didn't. But perhaps this thread has hit a nerve with you.

@Miffee great post. I suspect most smokers are like you and fall into the first camp. It's just such a minority thing now, with a growth in healthy lifestyles and pollution awareness.

I personally have no problem with considerate smokers like you (in fact, thanks for voluntarily contributing to govt funds!)
It's the idiots who don't seem aware or don't care that the majority of us don't wish to smell their smoke or (shudder) those sickly sweet fruity vapes

Ah there's no need to be so snippy. I'm just stating the obvious. Do you seriously enjoy the waft of BBQ or bonfire smoke as you are enjoying your garden on a Summer's Day, or waiting for your whites to dry on the line? Maybe you do but many don't, it's like cigarette smoke isn't it?

Anyway you can believe me or not, but I don't smoke at all, but can be tolerant and balanced.

That's why if I do go out, I leave may fags in the car.

Im talking about whether it should be where there is outdoor dining. You can have your non-food pubs. Great that you "might" not waft smoke into someone else's meal! I'd just prefer you didn't at all!

No one wants to smell someone's gross cigarette when they're trying to eat. It's completely unnecessary. If you can't go a couple of hours without it, you need help.

There’s no need to go without if you smoke in a perfectly legal place, ie outside.