Taking The Piss
by Quinn
As unsung heroes go, I can’t think of a better example than “that bloke” who one day came up with the idea of placing reading matter in front of the urinals in pubs. How did we ever spend our time before? Stare into space, or at porcelain, or at our bits? Some (though not me) would of course engage in a wee game of “compare and contrast”. But now, while we slash, we can read half of the lead story in yesterday’s Telegraph; then, our ablutions completed, we can loiter awkwardly, trying to skim read the rest of the article; that is until someone else enters the bogs, so we slowly wash our hands, dry them on the hot air dryer (which keeps cutting out on us as our hands move away from the enigmatically placed sensor) waiting for the other person to leave so we can continue our read; and then a second person arrives and so we finally give up and exit the toilets (the hot air dryer that kept cutting before out is now stuck on permanently once our hands are not only out of the way, but in a different room) and we resolve to read the rest of the article on our next trip to the toilet (not far away; we’ve already drunk six pints); but the next time we go to the toilet that specific urinal is in use, so we decide to finish off the article by reading it on the internet when we get home; but by then we are far too drunk and we forget all about it.
That is why, much as I like newspapers in toilets, the theory is flawed and so adverts can be a better choice. At the John Millington a few weeks ago, for example, I read a sign advertising the forthcoming (yes, forthcoming; I hate the word upcoming) events at the pub. One was for their Fathers’ Day extravaganza, and as someone who will play the fool for any excuse to go out for a meal, I was obviously interested. Problem; the John Millington does not allow children under the age of six years into their pub. Fair enough; their house, their rules. Though I must say I was tempted to phone them and explain just how taken I was with their offer, that I would love to join them for their Fathers’ Day festivities. But I can’t. Because I am a father.
Below the Fathers’ Day adverts was a second item explaining the changes the pub was in the process of making to their beer garden to enlarge, cover and heat the outside drinking area; it wasn’t explicit but I assume it was to make ready for the smoking ban that starts in England tomorrow. You may recall that I have written on the subject before, when I stated that I considered the action somewhat draconian, and that a compromise could surely be found to prevent an outright ban on smoking.
But I’m afraid it’s happened again; I start off as a qualified critic of a proposal but then when I hear the obnoxious views of it’s more vocal opponents I quite unfairly swing round and decide that the new idea deserves far more merit. Because I understand smokers being peeved by the new laws; they want to smoke in the pub and are being prevented from doing so, and if that were all then I can and will sympathise. I can see why they are vexed. It is the further inappropriate invoking of the issue of civil liberties that annoys me and which has shifted my viewpoint. The argument goes that it is our individual freedom to do as we wish and for some people to smoke if they like. Fine; but civil liberties only allow you to do as you wish so long as your actions don’t affect others. Smoking does affect others, be it passive smoking, stinging eyes or stinking clothes. So that is that…next!
Just because it has traditionally been non-smokers who have been inconvenienced by smokers doesn’t make it right. Perhaps it is time to redress that historical imbalance. It is a poor reason to change ones mind, but once again I feel my liberal position has been challenged by those people – in this case thoughtless smokers – who talk about freedom but who evidently don’t give a damn about the freedoms of others. As it is, every few Fridays I go out with Mike to the Kenilworth. Neither of us being smokers, we sit in the No Smoking area. It makes no difference, by midnight the whole place is awash with smoke and our clothes, hair and skin stink of the stuff; and I don’t know about you, but for me bath night isn’t until Sunday. So, while I previously questioned the smoking ban, as it appears in the headlights I can honestly say that I can’t wait.
The Obscurer 
The argument goes that it is our individual freedom to do as we wish and for some people to smoke if they like
It’s not smoker’s rights that the ban violates, it’s the rights of landlords to decide their own policy on smoking. For some bizarre reason the government thinks that a bar is a public place. It’s not, it’s private.
But bars are public places – indeed they are “public houses” – and even in private places doesn’t the law still apply?
I think the relevant piece of the legislation covers enclosed places of work. You’d never get smoking past COSHH if it weren’t already culturally ingrained, apart from anything else. They’d better be careful, covering over the back garden. Too much cover and it would probably qualify as similarly enclosed.
And “the rights of landlords to decide their own policy on smoking?” Oh, yes, I remember that one: it’s just below the right to free speech, which is an admirable ordering, certainly, but it seems to be in some people’s minds significantly above the right not to be given lung cancer by your employer.
Legislative experience has shown with asbestosis that if you prevaricate long enough, of course, the whining sods just die off. But, for a’ that, let us not forget Roy Castle (a pronouncement that might at one time have seemed as improbable as “You know what? Sting was right.”)
Quinn – They are called “public houses”, but they are private property.
sbalb – No one is rounding the employees up at gunpoint and forcing them to work in a place that allows smoking.
Is outlawing printers next?
“…The humble office laser printer can damage lungs in much the same way as smoke particles from cigarettes, a team of Australian scientists has found.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/6923915.stm
I was going to add a website in the website field but its two small for the long url.
Yes, pubs are private properties, but they are without a doubt public places; for example if I were to wander into a house and steal a lamp I would be guilty of burglary; were I to do the same in a pub it would be theft. But even then, as I said, the law applies even on private properties.
With regard laser printers; if there is sufficient evidence that they cause a significant level of harm to health, then why not ban them, or at least enforce some sort of minimum safety standard?
I can’t speak for sbalb, but for me while no one may literally be forcing people to work in a smoky environment, the effect may be that people have no choice but to work in one. Is that fair? Say I worked in an office that allowed smoking, but was full of non-smokers; if they then employed someone who chain-smoked and sat them next to me, is it right that I should then have to put up with the inconvenience and health risk, or else have to look for a new job? I don’t think it is.
re: “Yes, pubs are private properties, but they are without a doubt public places”
To me the important distinction is private property. The fact that the owner of that private property might allow the public in general to visit it, doesn’t IMO mean he should have substantially less rights over it.
As for having no choice, I don’t think that’s almost ever the case. They might not have a better choice than accepting the smoky environment, but that isn’t the same as no choice. If your office allowed smoking, and did when you where hired, then you accepted the risk that you would be put next to a chain smoker. Its not good that you have to deal with the smoke, but its not wrong either in the sense of being immoral, or in the sense of being a violation of your rights. Personally I don’t smoke, and I don’t like being around smoke very much, but it wouldn’t be right for me to enforce my preferences on the rest of the world.
You might counter the bar owners who allow smoking, are enforcing their preference on the rest of the world (or trying to do so) but their not. They owners are enforcing their preference on their property only, unless you know of attempts to pass laws that REQUIRE smoking, or require that smoking be allowed in some particular space.
I think that pubs and bars do more than just “allow the public in”. It is the basis of their trade, not an option, and as such it seems reasonable to me that landlords have to make certain accommodations to the general public, such as health and safety legislation.
As for being sat next to a chain smoker, I may have a choice insofar as I can put up with the inconvenience or get another job, but why should I have to? Perhaps I love my job and am good at it (I am speaking hypothetically!), I may have happily worked there for twenty years, and be an asthmatic; why should I have to look at moving because someone else is being inconsiderate?
I guess it comes down to how you view the smoking ban; is it a fundamental attack on our rights? I don’t think so. I don’t want to infringe on anyone’s right to smoke, just as long as that right doesn’t infringe on others’ freedoms.
“The basis of their trade”, doesn’t make it something more than “allowing the public in.
As for the situation with the chain smoker, maybe you shouldn’t have to change jobs because he wants to smoke, but that’s the decision for the employer. Its his or her building, and business, not the smokers, the government’s, or yours. Having you pushed in to losing your job is less than ideal, but the government shouldn’t try to resolve all less than ideal situations. To the extent that you are so good at your job, its also less than ideal for the employer, so the employer is likely to want to keep you and try to accommodate you in some way (even if they want to keep the smoker as well they are likely to set off smoking and non-smoking areas).
As for infringing on other’s freedoms, that precisely what the smoking ban is trying to do. The lack of such a ban doesn’t infringe on your freedom. You don’t properly have the right to force others to accept your preferences in terms of smoking. And such government edicts have no relation to expanding freedom. Even if they are justified by some other reason, its unreasonable to call expanding government control “freedom.”
Banning smoking on the private property of someone who wants smoking is intrusive and unwarranted, in the same way that government forcing you to allow smoking on your private property would be intrusive.
I’m not arguing that bars aren’t private property, but that they are public places, else we’re trespassing whenever we go for a beer.
But even then, let’s accept for the sake of argument that they are simply private property; an employer still doesn’t have carte blanche to run things as he or she wishes, he must still abide by the law. Perhaps an employer is happy for a situation where some members of staff bully and harass other staff members, maybe he or she doesn’t care if some employees punch, trip up, pull the hair and flick the ears of others. If everyone in the firm is happy with that and accepts the situation then fine; for those who aren’t there is recourse to the law, despite the incidents occurring on private property and with the permission of the owner.
Yes, the government shouldn’t try to resolve all less than ideal situation, and we can debate whether the inconvenience of smoking is a more trivial matter than someone flicking your ears and so unsuitable for government intervention; but the principle that wherever we are, we have the freedom to indulge in our preferences only as long as they don’t adversely affect others, seems sound.
Of course the owner has to abide by the law. The issue isn’t “should the owner have to abide by the law?”, but what are the proper limits of the law.
Re: “but the principle that wherever we are, we have the freedom to indulge in our preferences only as long as they don’t adversely affect others, seems sound.”
Its sound to an extent but you can interpret almost any action as adversely affected others in some way. Should people who live in houses with non-smokers not be allowed to smoke by force of law? I don’t think so, but certainly the smoke could be said to adversely affect others. Should boxers not be able to hit each other? Certainly a punch in the face causes an adverse effect.
Some adverse affect should be allowed if its on the person’s own property (or on the property of someone who allows it), and if no one is forced to accept it. If I wanted to run a “flick other people on the ear” bar I should be able to as long as I made it clear that it was allowed. Perhaps if such flicking regularly escalated in to open fighting there would be a case to disallow the flicking based on maintaining public order, but smoking doesn’t typically escalate to violence.
The law isn’t the only check on smoking or ear flicking. If people sufficiently hate smoking, or ear flicking, they have the ability to avoid being in a place where it is allowed and condoned. If enough people sufficiently hated it then any bar that allowed either would be likely to lose business (or would only maintain business if it was serving the niche of those who accepted it, while most other bars moved to server the majority).
It isn’t just an issue of smoking. This isn’t some isolated instance of regulation of private behavior on private property. To the extent that more and more such activity is decided by the force of law and regulation, we lose more and more of our freedom. I don’t want to go overboard with that criticism, I’m not claiming we are on the road to stalinism or anything like that, but still its a serious concern.
Getting back to the earlier comment about laser printers. Yes if they are a sufficiently severe health threat some case could be made to ban or regulate them, or to ban or regulate the production and sale of new printers. But we can detect potential harm at increasingly low levels with modern technology and studies. We are either going to have to accept items that do show a health risk, or we are going to have a much larger health risk caused by the damage to our economy. From car exhaust to walking outside on a sunny day, there is potential health risk. We should generally be reluctant to regulate unless its a truly massive risk, and even then we have to weight the costs and benefits of the proposed regulation.
Of course the owner has to abide by the law. The issue isn’t “should the owner have to abide by the law?”, but what are the proper limits of the law.
That’s it really; for me it is a case of where you draw the line, rather than simply one of the state interfering beyond its remit. Whether you think the smoking ban goes beyond the proper limits of the law depends upon whether you smoke, how bothered you are by other people’s smoke, how harmful you feel passive smoking is, and so on, but I don’t think it is automatically an instance of the law having gone too far. It’s a judgement call, in my opinion.
Of course its not “automatically” an instance of the law having gone to far. Different people have different opinions about how far is two far. Obviously I’m just asserting mine when I say it has gone to far in this case. I’m not saying that everyone MUST have such an opinion, just as you presumably are not saying that everyone MUST have the opinion that such a law is ok.
To put my opinion another way, I’m not just saying the law is just a bad idea, but that its an injustice against the owner of the bar. Of course the injustice has to be put in perspective. We encounter any number of small injustices in our lives. I’m not claiming that this law is the equivalent of stalinism, only that its wrong, and its part of a more general move that is slowly decreasing personal liberty.