Total smoking ban in pubs and clubs - does this affect offices too?

[Enid]

So will smoking be banned in ALL public places now, or just pubs and clubs?

Sorry totaly confusing I went for a weekend in Dublin.

ruty yes will be illegal from Summer 2007

another year tho enid.

Great - can't wait - can't abide smoking and hate the smell / damage it does to my health. Should put up price f ciggies to £10 as that will stop them smoking!

ooo lovely so when all the nonsmokers want to go into the pub it'll be like going into one of the supermarkets when you have to walk through a cloud of smoke to get in..........

is there going to be a negative impact on the environment because of this ban?? interesting

Our ban starts on 26th March but already many restaurants and pubs and public buldings have started the ban, dp and i were out for a meal last sunday and we came home with our jackets not smouldered with the usual smoke

So does the no smoking ban include the Beer gardens in pubs?

Why are prisoners allowed the luxury of being able to continue smoking when honest hard working people have had the right to enjoy a cigarette while relaxing down the local taken away from them.

I dont smoke but my Dh does, I dont have a problem with that it is his choice. he has never smoked around the children and if I dont want to go into a smokey pub with him we choose a different one, its as simple as that.

Everyone seemed to agree with labour's manifesto but suddenly keeping everyone happy wasnt good enough and once again they have taken away our right to choose.

I can see things from everyones point of view smokers/non-smokers but surely we should be able to make our own decisions now and again without being dictated to by a government that so far has managed to mess up the majority of its decisions.

being asthmatic i haven't been able to go to a pub in the evening for a very long time. What is the choice for non smokers if other people smoke? Being forced to inhale other people's? This is about the first thing the govt has done right and it has dragged its heels for far too long.

I believe the smoking ban hasn't come a moment too soon. My son is asthmatic and so our quite a few of my family. It is great to know he will grow up not having to cope with smokey atmospheres. I believe this change to the law should have been made a long time ago. I've been on holiday to Ireland and California where somking is banned and it was so nice to come home from a night out without the smell of smoke on your clothes.

Only thing about making you own decisions is what about the workers in the smoking pubs? If you choose to smoke you can do it outside.

Hello from Tasmania, Australia.....just introduced a smoking ban similar to proposed one in the UK. You can only smoke in designated outdoor places in pub gardens, no where indoors at pubs/clubs, it's working a treat, incentive for alot of people to give up. I work on a psychiatric ward here where there is no smoking...and it works, never thought I'd see the day! The ward has been no smoking for ages, patients get patches, or nicoteen puffers, it gets rid of the whole aspect of bullying people for thier cigarettes. I gave up about 4 years ago, as I saw it would end up like this in Australia, and knew it would drive me round the bend. I'm amazed they're going to ban it so widely in the UK. Good luck to them.

pebblemum - I would love to see no smoking for prisoners in workshops and walkways. Only place they should be allowed to smoke is in their cell, providing they are in a smoking cell. There should be ample no smoking cells to for those who choose not to smoke.

it really annoys me that people say that preventing them from smoking is preventing them from enjoying themselves - nicotine is addictive, so it is not a pleasure, it is an addiction, and they could enjoy themselves just as much once they wean themselves off the addiction, and stop risking other people's health as well as their own.

Really sad to hear that patio heaters are bad for the environment! I like huddling under them. Not to smoke though as am now smug non-smoker.

I think it's a shame there can't be smoking and non-smoking pubs. They could employ only smokers to work in the former and offer automatic redeployment rights to a non-smoking pub for quitters.

that just wouldn't work scummymummy. Most pubs if given the choice would continue to be smoking pubs because they don't want to rock their punters' boats.

You're probably right, ruty. Sigh. I don't really like smoke anymore- gives me a headache- but there's something about a yukky, smoked up, dimly lit, dirty ole pub that feels right to me. I will be sorry to see them consigned to the ashtray of history and fear that it will feed right into the starbucks style, light, bright, bushy tailed, shit, chain pubs like the slug and lettuce continuing their take-over of the world.

I used to love to have a fag in one hand and a drink in the other as a student. HAvent smoked since though.

i'm not sure if that takeover has anything to do with smoking tho scummy, more like conglomerate domination - i've seen plently of nice individual pubs get taken over and have a faceless chain makeover - and you can still smoke in them!

Great great great. I'm in SCotland and can't wait until about 5 weeks time when a full ban comes in. At last I will be able to go out for a cup of tea with my DD and my pregnant self without fearing lung cancer caused by passive smoking, as well as smelling like an ashtray. I feel quite strongly that it is a smokers personal choice if they choose to do so, but children and others should not be subjected to the side effects.