Should smoking (of all kinds) be relaxed for non food pubs, bars and clubs

[TeqGB]

Originally Posted by dizzybint

What about all those years that passive smokers had to enjoy what others were doing like it or not, they didnt have a choice or could leave the pub if it got too much.. we werent considered for a long time and laughed at if we complained, hardly anyone did as it was just something that was allowed in pubs even if it harmed non smokers..

You mention that, but did any new people who didn't like smoking in pubs actually start coming out to drink in pubs on a regular basis due to the smoking ban?

I'd suggest that such a number would be very very small, and would be dwarfed by the smokers and non-smokers that feel unwelcome.

Hell, many pubs in Britain won't even allow people to use their e-cigarettes in there, and that is completely legal.

[TeqGB]

Originally Posted by Razza94

The closure of smaller pubs is due to economics, not the smoking ban.

I think the smoking ban had quite a lot to do with it. Pub closures increased exponentially after the smoking ban. It was the death knell for thousands upon thousands of pubs. Pubs that were already struggling went off a cliff, as they lost a lot of their trade. No-one wants to sit in a completely empty pub all night.

As for your price comparison assertion - it is true for things like Fosters or Strongbow that, say, you can get the equivalent of about 20 pints of Strongbow in a slab for £13. And that a pint of Strongbow in a pub is probably about £3.70 a pint or so.

But there's one thing.

That really only holds up for industrial lager and cider.

If I were to buy a PBA in a supermarket, it would probably cost me around about £2.30-£2.40 per pint. In the pub I would pay maybe about £3.10 for that pint. So, for PBAs, the margins are a lot less. Supermarkets have a wider range of beer, too, although you don't get the superior taste from a good pint of cask.

If the cost of everything was the overriding factor, pubs would hardly exist.

Takeaways and restaurants would not exist. A meal in a pub can cost around £13. You could probably make the same food at home, yourself (and probably of better quality!) for around £4 or so. People go to different restaurants and pubs to eat because it's pleasurable.

Where I live, pretty much all the pub food, restaurants and takeaways are mediocre at best. We have maybe five or six pubs that do food in the surrounding area? Perhaps around six or seven takeaways (Indian, Chinese, pizza/pasta/kebab/etc)? Four restaurants?

When I go out to eat, I want to make something I can't easily make at home. This is kind of problematic, as (with the possible exception of the Thai place that I haven't been to yet) all the food served in them is basically really quite bland.