General Chat

A Spanish bar owner is refusing to ban smoking from his private establishment.
Even tho' he is a non smoker he is refusing to apply to Spains law saying his restuarant is a private place NOT a public place

Food for thought he says he is allowed to sell tobacco but his patrons are not allowed to spark up.......

SO if tobacco is the death drug it is then ban the sale of it.

I agree if they ban the sale all places will become smoke free .....

your views ?

Smoking brings in cash in tax here Uzzi so I do not think they would ever ban it.

It would be intresting to know if that tax offset the bill for the NHS for smoking related diseases.

This is just a view! I am a non smoker but my late Mum and Dad smoked.
One died of a smoking related disease and one didnt.

Teresa

Teresa, me and OH discussed this today ...put tobacco as a blanket illegal ban then what loss of revenue ? The chap is saying if they put tobacco illegal as Hash then he will stop ..he wil also remove the cig machine that is allowed in his pub, It's a point I will follow, I think Spain is going to have a hard job

Have all the countries in Europe got the ban now?

Teresa

Teresa I don't know but apparently Spain has taken it on board (as they did with drink drive)

I don't think people should be allowed to smoke in restaurants.

My thoughts are that some customers won't have a choice when someone in a table next to them lights up except not to go there......however if every restaurant does this....

More importantly those who work there won't have any choice but to inhale the smoke and are at risk of passive smoking. I therefore don't think it's private if he has employees and customers.

I think to ban the sale of tobacco would simply lead to a heightened black market, and criminal activity - there's enough of that already with duty-evading smugglers, but if it was banned altogether it would turn into the crimes of the drug market and another market for the crime barons - as happened in the original liquor bans in the USA. I'm all in favour of protecting the public by keeping the smoking away from public places - but while his restaurant may be privately owned it is open to the public for trade!

I'm with SRS on the employees aspect -- there are health and safety rules that govern all other employees, why should low-wage bar and restaurant workers be the ones who are forced to be exposed to hazardous conditions or quit their jobs?

A business that is *open to the public* is not purely private. That's why the Spanish bar owner can't refuse to serve Muslims or women or people in wheelchairs. That's how it works in civilized societies: there are restrictions on private businesses, for the public good.

I'm a smoker. I will not support purely punitive rules (like no smoking in one's own car in a parking lot), but I don't think I'm entitled to impose my choice on other people where it can affect their health or comfort.

And Elizabeth's right about the age-old black market / smuggling / organized crime problem. We've seen it here in Canada when taxes were raised -- actual shootouts on the St Lawrence river between smugglers (from the US) and police, for instance. Anything that puts money in the pockets of organized crime is not good.

Of course, the best part about our smuggling problem was that the big tobacco companies themselves were running much of the black market trade -- they exported their cigarettes to the US duty-free, and sold them to smugglers (actually conspired with the smugglers) for them to be brought back into Canada illegally.

I don't like being part of organized crime ... I've got a patch on at the moment ... ;)

I am a smoker & I live in Spain.
My view is that the proprietors of the bars should have the right to decide whether to allow smoking or not. I quite agree & am happy to comply with a smoking ban in restaurants, but having a drink, a cigarette & reading the paper are a very strong part of Spanish culture, especially for the elderly who like to sit for hours & put the world to rights & also for the 4.5 million unemployed, for whom the alternative is to sit in the house all day getting more & more depressed.
Surely smokers have rights too & non smokers would be able to choose where they went.
Sitting outside is certainly an alternative in summer, but not from November to April & quite frankly the traffic fumes are far more toxic than cigarette smoke. The argument about the health of the staff is a valid one, but in my experience there are very few bar staff who don´t smoke themselves.
When the ban was first introduced last year, proprietors were given the choice of being either smoking or non smoking establishments & that worked very well. Now they are all being forced to be non smoking, they are losing a lot of their trade because people are refusing to go.
Marion