nonsense. If the majority of the group want to go to a non-smoking bar, they’ll cave in just because the minority want to go to a smoking bar? Surely they would go to a non-smoking bar and the smokers can go outside?
Your story is anecdotal and doesn’t have any relevance to your arguement.
I don’t mind the pubs being non smoking. I just miss the old pubs.
Must be confined to Dublin then, because I haven’t seen somebody smoke in a cinema in about 10 years and about the same time for city centre buses.
On inter city buses people occasionally think nobody will notice or complain, these people are invariably wrong on both counts.
True.
On the top deck of any bus to or from Tallaght or Ballyfermot you will find one or more of the following:
Cigarettes
Alcohol (usually Dutch Gold or Druid’s cider)
Cannabis
Heroin
Solvents
Ecstasy
Unfortunately the clientele isn’t the classiest, and the ambience is somewhat lacking, but if you are looking for the atmosphere of a pub, the number 78A or 77 is probably the nearest you’ll get.
Ok the workplace argument is one thing I suppose but truly if you were "allergic’ to smoke why would you apply to work in a bar? People have smoked in bars since moses was a rugrat. It doesn’t take a genius to work you that if you work in bar you will be exposed to smoke. IMHO it is not the same situation as other places smoking used to be allowed.
In the old days (and they must have been very old days cause I’m 37 and i can’t remember it) people smoked in cinemas, a movies 1-2 hours long the average smoker would have one or two smokes. Airlines maybe a bit different…smokers use fags to calm the nerves. But pubs? Shit watch any smoker in a pub, the more you drink the more you smoke.
Pubs are not health spas. There very reason for existing is to peddle something that ain’t that good for you.
I still have yet to see one logical reason why this needs a law and why pubs can’t choose to be smoke friendly. The mixed-group thing doesn’t hold water, smokers know that they are less then welcome most places. If I go out with a group of non smokers I wouldn’t insist on going to a smoke friendly place nor will I blow smoke in their faces or stub butts in their dinner 
If a group of smokers go out together why can’t they have somewhere they can all enjoy a smoke? As I said in my OP will the pub guarantee to save my table while I (a paying customer) am loitering on the footpath?
If smoking is so truly horrific it needs to be monitored in such a draconian way why doesn’t the govt just ban it all together…and alcohol while they are at it. No need for smokeful or smokeless bars that way
Sorry counsel wolf, missed your post, was answering Twisty.
Dublin bus drivers prefer not to bother the crowd of 15 tracksuit clad Northsiders (could use oher words, not going to) in the back row of the top deck.
They’re generally quiet enough, and if you don’t mind passively smoking a joint at 7am, no trouble.
But they take badly to being ejected from public transport. The only time I’ve seen a driver do it, there was a mini-riot and the Gardai were called.
Yes, because banishing your friends outside when there’s an alternative venue where you don’t have to do that is the friendly thing to do. My experience is that if there’s a group of people 4 of which can give or take an option and one of which is strongly one side or the other, the one with the strong opinion will win.
Errr, my story wasn’t ancedotal it was an example of a situation for other people to contemplate how they would deal with it. I also wasn’t particularly having an argument, just offering another perspective to think about.
Surely if you miss the old pubs then you do mind the pubs being non smoking?
Oi! both busses you mention go to the Southside! Just because you’re some northern blow-in doesn’t mean you can insult us northsiders!!
you should have said 15 tracksuit clad scumbags 
Or listed the 13, 27 or 42 bus routes
Like Twist already said, I sincerely doubt that’s the case.
Furthermore, that’s between the group of friends. If I was with a group of friends who all wanted to go to a non-smoking pub I am left with a choice. What’s more important to me, the friends or the cigarettes? I’d say I’d pick the friends. Same vice versa. If there are more smokers than the non-smokers can choose to go along with it or go out with friends who don’t smoke only.
I feel that this is a decision to sort out among your social group. What has happened now is that one group of people has called in the government to say that their choice is right and the other people’s choice has therefore been made illegal.
It’s not an either/or situation. I do miss the old pub atmosphere, but I can’t put the atmosphere ahead of making a safer workplace environment. I quit smoking not because it is beneficial to my health, but because I hated being banished outside.
Yes, I am that lazy.
Any hints for another lazy smoker?
I may come back to deal with the other issues in your post in time but this rather horrendously dressed strawman needs a good kicking.
Alcoholic beverages are not the same kettle of fish as smoking because I can sit beside a drinker all day and not get anything more for my troubles than a rather embarassing set of confessions before he or she slumps out of his or her seat. Sitting next to a smoker all day wrecks my clothes, makes me cough, makes my eyes sting and quite possibly increases my chances of developing some very nasty diseases(please don’t re-open the stats about second hand smoke threads, the other issues would be enough without this last point).
A much better comparison would be with public urination, which is already banned.
Nicotiene patches take away the craving without you having to do anything.
Minty chewing gum for when you want to break your routiene of smoking.
And lots and lots of Bin 555 Shiraz red wine, prices 10.95 down your local Dunnes Stores.
Or the government could actually try and combat the problem by installing outdoor toilets like Amsterdam and Coventry have done, instead of fining people who don’t want to fight their way through the junkies and security guards in the local McDonalds.
What about the rights of the business owner?
I don’t know about other States or Countries, but here in New Mexico, a full liquor license will set you back $200,000. That’s JUST the license. Add your property and equipment and insurance and you’re looking at half a mil just to open the doors. And then you have to go buy booze. (+ another $40 bucks for ashtrays )
So you spend you half million, you pay the highest taxes on your sales, you run one of the most highly regulated businesses you can run and then guess what?
The government is going to tell you who you can or cannot cater to?
Regardless of smokers’ rights and workers rights, what about owners rights?
I am not even going ask how or what diseases you caught off someone elses urine :eek:
I still say pubs ain’t health spas, if you are there then you ain’t there for your health.
And Twist the red wine will only egg on the beast that is smoking addiction 
So is this ban being enforced?
If so by who?
I wouldn’t like to be the environmental health officer who told a busy London pub to stop smoking. The police wouldn’t do it either. (for the same reason that the chavs aren’t stopped smoking dope and drinking diamond white on busues (they do that here too)
I thought the Irish police were gamous for a “relaxed” attitude to licencing laws - maybe it’s just a stereotype.
Having said that some football stadiums are no-smoking now, and it’s usualy well-observed.
There are inspectors, but their initial report (published last week) showed incredibly high rates of compliance - over 90% in all parts of the country and 100% in a few.
Curiously enough they still are. At least with regards to closing times. (I don’t know if that goes for Dublin) But the smoking ban was very strictly enforced here and I suppose that was the only way to handle it if it you’re going to do it at all.
But the trawlerman’s employer is, presumably, obliged to take all steps to safeguard against any injuries and fatalities, and not to subject him to unnecessary risks.
My point exactly.
I have no way of proving this, but I think that, in a situation where some bars voluntarily go non-smoking, they would be likely to pick up only that percentage of customers who absolutely cannot abide cigarette smoke, while losing all their smoking customers to bars where smoking is still permitted. Non-smokers who might prefer a smokefree environment but aren’t adamant about it probably would not change their habits at all. Thus, there would be a strong economic disincentive for a bar to unilaterally ban smoking. This disincentive disappears when the smokers have nowhere else to go.
Come to think of it, we might be able to prove this by looking at how bars along the Six County border are doing.
In any event, it doesn’t inevitably follow from the fact that bars aren’t voluntarily going non-smoking that there isn’t a demand for non-smoking bars.