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Smoking ban killing business, say pubs: COMMENT ON THIS STORY
PUBLICANS have hit back at council claims the smoking ban has been a success in Scarborough.
The borough council's environment manager Steve Reynolds told the latest meeting of the corporate strategy overview and scrutiny committee that anti-smoking legislation had been successful in town, although it had also led to an increase in littering.
However, his words have angered local licensees, who say the ban has cost them business.
Kath Duffy, landlady of the Newcastle Packet and president of the Scarborough branch of the Licensed Victuallers' Association, said: "The council might think the ban is wonderful but we don't. Pubs have lost a lot of trade, the summer's not been too bad but the winter when people have to stand out in the cold will really hurt us. We saw a definite drop in trade last winter. People just aren't coming to pubs like they used to before the ban."
Laurin Mainprize, landlady of the Britannia, said: "I reckon business is down 40 per cent on last year. Smoking isn't illegal and people shouldn't have to stand outside in the cold to smoke. Why can't we have smoking and non-smoking establishments so people can make up their own minds?
"The local pub's a dying breed and the ban's one of the main reasons."
And customers agree.
Lindsay White, a regular in the Black Swan, said: "My husband's a smoker and he just won't come to the pub any more – he says there's no pleasure if he can't have a smoke with his pint."
Her friend Janine Welsh added: "I don't smoke but I still think it's wrong – in winter it's absolutely freezing, why would anyone want to stand out in that?"
The Campaign for Real Ale says 36 pubs close every week in the UK, and though the credit crunch and cheap supermarket beer prices are also causes of closures, landlords are adamant the smoking ban is a major factor.
Campaigning group Freedom to Choose has raised a million-name petition to fight the new law, which was introduced on July 1 2007. Its aim is ultimately to collect between five and seven million signatures.
The group's Helen Daniels told the Evening News it was not just non-smokers who objected to the ban.
"We're not a pro-smoking organisation – in fact a third of our members are non-smokers who think the ban is unfair.
"I cannot agree the ban has been hailed as a success – business failures, unemployment, increased stress, denormalisation of citizens, community groups broken up, the elderly in total social isolation – to name but a few effects of the ban. Where’s the success in that?”
Scarborough Council’s head of environmental services Andy Skelton said although the ban had been introduced by the national government rather than the authority, as head of the body that enforces it he was in favour of the law.
“The key issue with the introduction of the smoking ban was the protection of the health of the people who work in places where smoking was allowed, who were definitely at risk from smoke,” he said.
“Like most health professionals I am fully supportive of it and this is a view that is shared by three quarters of the population.
“It now seems quite clear that as well as protecting the health of workers the ban has also led to a reduction in the number of people smoking – an estimate suggests that 400,000 people may have quit the habit since the ban was introduced.
“This means more than two billion fewer cigarettes have been introduced and as many as 40,000 deaths will be prevented in the next 10 years. Of course I have sympathy with those businesses who have been adversely affected by the ban but when those concerns are weighed against the public health benefits I am absolutely clear that the Government were right to ban smoking in enclosed public spaces.”
What do you think? Email us: letters@scarboroughevening news.co.uk
Write to: Evening News, Aberdeen Walk, Scarborough, Y011 1BB.
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Weather for Scarborough
Saturday 26 May 2012
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