TheBigMan

Agreed, priorities are wrong but hey - this is better than nothing.

OllyK

What are you saying, I don't know what happens where I live?? Maybe you can tell me what happens then, seeing as you seem to know my area better than I do.

TelBoy

Nonsense, and you know it, i'll repeat. But you have an opinion and that's fine, we're all entitled to one. At the end of the day, legislation is in place, and i for one welcome it.

davyboy

Funnily enough, those criminals will be allowed to smoke in prison

Dave

TelBoy

LOL, is that actually true, Dave? I like the irony in that if it is.

TheBigMan

I do not make snidey comments - that would achieve nothing. Your assumptions are incorrect. Also incorrect is the letter through the door - this came from the council and not from residents.

So, thats the facts dealt with - now back to the debate....

You seem to think that this bonfire issue is an easy one to grasp. A world where everybody talks to each other, in the spirit of community. I'm afraid this is not the case.

Would you accept that there may be, just maybe a world where not everybody talks? A world where a bonfire gets lit without any prior warning??

When it comes to compromise it is like everything - it only takes 1 party for it all to break down. I would not hang out my washing and would close my windows if I knew there was a bonfire taking place, that is compromise - but do you REALLY think that EVERYBODY knocks on peoples doors informing them of such facts??

If you say "yes" then you really are certified.

OllyK

The clue was at the end of the sentences. Full stop = statement, Question mark = question. I was asking you questions not making statements of assumption.

I think I've humoured your ramblings on this far enough. I fail to see what this has to do with the errosion of civil liberties. The smoking ban is such an errosion, that's a point of fact, while you continue to insist that the snow is black becuase you think black snow is a good idea, we aren't going to progress very far.

I can't pass comment on where you live although others seem to feel qualified to do so about where I live. All I can tell you is how things work around me. This shows it CAN work, and the only reason it doesn't where you are is due to the people involved. Consider that your rather selfish, do it my way or no way attitude, may well be provoking them to **** you off on purpose.

As I say - I can only pass comment on where I live and not anywhere else. The fact that we make it work and you can't suggests you are at fault and not us.

TheBigMan

Olly - I shall pass comment and add closure to my "ramblings" with this.

You said:

"I fail to see what this has to do with the errosion of civil liberties. The smoking ban is such an errosion, that's a point of fact".


I say:

"Allowing smoking in public places in the first place was the erosion of civil liberties".

Back then we didn't know the effects it had (over and above the stench).

Your whole argument seems to be based entirely on "cos that's the way it has always been". You forget that there was a time when smoking didn't happen. I wonder if back then there were arguments of civil liberties being affected by allowing smoking in public places.....


.

Wurzel

iTrader: (1)

Ollyk you don't even smoke but you seem to have made it a personal vendetta over the last few weeks to argue the toss and ferociously defend the rights of smokers !!! what are you on? and can I suggest you stop taking it as it is effecting your brain!

TheBigMan

He's playing devils advocate. Looking at it from what he perceives a third party view. In his mind he is defending civil liberties - not smokers. It's not a vendetta, he is standing up for what he belives in. I do not agree with him (if that wasn't already obvious).

What he fails to grasp is that "civil liberties" were compromised when smoking was ORIGINALLY permitted in public places. Reversing this, he feels, for some reason would also be an erosion of civil liberties. I feel (playing devils advocate) that we are simply righting a previous wrong.

Long overdue!!


.

OllyK

Erosion of civil liberties is when you remove choice. If smoking had been made mandatory for everybody then I'd agree. It wasn't nor has it ever been. The government was IMO lax in encouraging or legislating for choice to ensure there was a reasonable provision for smoke free facilities, allowing people to have a choice of smokey or smoke free for activities historically associated with smoking. Banning is a draconian solution that is not a compromise, it is the enforcement of a single zero choice solution, it leaves no room for the minority choice to be expressed.

OllyK

Smoking just happens to be the current item on the agenda for banning, I'd rather seek a compromise that meets the needs of both sides rather than having one side outright win at the expense of the other. People get very immotive about smoking and make all sorts of wild claims about non-smokers not having had the choice in the past. My argument, fight to gain that choice rather than trying to curtail the activities of others that you can otherwise avoid.

paulr

Is that right?

Iwan

It's correct, as it's their permanent place of residence while they're locked up.

OllyK

I hear a penny dropping!

No as the choice to not smoke was not removed in the process.

Again - you seem to be allowing your personal distaste for this specific example to colour your judgement.

paulr

Yeah,just read that its classed as a "home",like residential care homes.

TheBigMan

I know how you work, there was no penny to drop Olly. You are arguing about principles - I knew that from post #1. It's been a great debate - though "ramblings" was a little too adversarial IMO.

I believe choice exists with this ban.

Choose to smoke - do so where it does not affect others. With choice comes limits, and these limits have been recognised as public areas where smoking currently has an adverse effect on the non-smoker. As such, non smokers and smokers can each choose their own route. Smokers can continue to smoke, and non smokers can socialise in an environment appropriate for a non smoker.

Gutmann pug

Persoanlly I think they should ban smoking in all eating places. There is nothing worse than sitting next to a table full of smokers who religiously dont smoke while they eat as they dont think its right and puts them off their food, then as soon as the last one has finished eating they all spark up and fume everyone else out..........wanxkers .....

However in a pub I dont mind it. My mates smoke and I would rather suffer from stinky clothes when I get home (they are going in the wash anyway) than have my mates dissapearing every 5 mins for a ***.

Not sure how you get over the issue of giving the bar maid lung cancer though.......

Gary

Dracoro

That's the argument for legalising Heroin, Cocaine, Arsenic, murder, burlgary etc.

I CAN'T choose if I can shoot some drugs. Not fair

OllyK

Smokers can't continue to smoke in a pub. The non-smokers argument has been that they can't go in to a pub and it be smoke free. While that's not entirely true anyway, the choice could have been maintained where pubs could be smoking or not and allow both sets to have the choice, now there is no choice for smokers or non smokers, all pubs will be the same.

OllyK

I take it you mean Arson rather than the rather poisonous semi-metal?

You seem to be confusing the legalisation of everything that is currently illegal with preventing the removal or reduction of currently legal choices.

Flatcapdriver

When, oh, when is that muppet Hewitt going to get the boot? The woman is so far out of her depth it's unbelievable given that she can't even introduce a simple piece of legislation without changing her mind every five minutes.

Thankfully, the MPs who voted for a complete ban have just about got it right because the decision as to what constitutes a smoking area and whether or not to ban smoking was not a decision that the brewing industry wanted foisting on them. Thankfully, smokers will be adequately provided with an external smoking area much as they have in Ireland and in summer will still be free to pollute the rest of us in the garden area.

Good for my business too.

Luan Pra bang

what about the right of a publican or restaurant owner to decide what happens in his propertry. I have 2 restaurants with smoking areas seperate from the eating areas. If you want to smoke you go to the bar area and smoke there. Who the **** has the right to tell me that I am not allowed any smoking area at all. Here is a hint when you buy your own pub/club/restaurant then you can decide what happens there until you do this then surely it is up to the owner to decide where you can and can't smoke ?

Petem95

Im all for it! I hate smokey pubs and clubs.

On the other hand I can see pub landlords getting a bit pis$ed off with it. People will just be hanging around outside smoking, and also a lot of people who would normally have gone for a pub meal may well decide to have lunch at home instead so they can smoke at the table.

Flatcapdriver

Firstly, no-one has said you cannot have a smoking area, just not internally. Secondly, if the public's health was left up to the average restaurateur I don't think we'd have particularly high standards of hygiene so there has to be some form of legislative guidelines and as a restuarant owner, surely you are aware that you cannot simply do as you want - licensing laws being a good example.

Flatcapdriver

Far from it. This is a massive opportunity for the switched on publicans to make a killing by simply offering an outside area that is heated for smokers to use. They then have a captive audience to which they can offer barby food when they get the munchies or whatever. It simply requires a bit of lateral thinking.

OllyK

An outside area, that's covered to protect from rain, has walls to protect from wind maybe, heating to protect from cold, a few tables and a bar out there to save them from having to come back in to the main pub to get another pint.

What'll happen is that the smokers will drink outside and the non-smokers will get lonely, so they'll stand outside with the smokers. Then they'll be whining they want to ban smoking in the smoking area as they are being forced to breath in smoke while they are with their mates

TelBoy

But that doesn't happen in Ireland, at least in the places i've been

Flatcapdriver

Apart from the the outside bar area, a unit as you describe already exists and as an ex-smoker I can tell you that retiring outside for a quick drag in this example, is child's play compared to some of the extremes I used to go to for a smoke. As a non-smoker I won't be going outside to 'enjoy' the company of the very few remaining mates I have who smoke as I don't need to, nor do I want to. Those that do, will have nothing to complain about.

It's all about choices. Freedom to be exposed to a smokey atmosphere and freedom not to be exposed. Simple really.

unclebuck

BAN this BAN that.



More one dimensional legislation from a myopic morally and intellectually bankrupt 'government'. Why bother to draft proper legislation when you can just BAN everything that you happen not to like. It's so much easier.