Smoking ban e-petition update
Tuesday, August 9, 2011 at 12:52 
Well, that's interesting. The Government's e-petition website has suddenly been flooded with smoking ban-related petitions.
Most have been rejected ("There is already an e-petition about this issue"). Two have survived the cull, including the one above (proposed by Daniel Connolly). I've no quarrel with it at all. It says what it is on the tin:
Amend the smoking ban
Amendment of the smoking ban allowing proprietors of businesses to decide whether or not to allow smoking on their premises.
The second published petition reads:
Smoking Ban Review
The smoking ban has lead to economic misery for many thousands of businesses. Pubs are closing at an unprecedented rate. Even non-smokers admit that the atmosphere in pubs has been adversely affected. The streets in our towns and cities are now being blighted by crowds of smokers gathering outside pubs, causing noise and litter pollution. Give landlords of public houses the choice - smoking or non-smoking! At the moment there are enough pubs for people to be given this choice - but for how much longer?
As for the rejected petitions – you can see them here.
There is no sign (not even a rejection) of the petition we submitted. For the record it was proposed by Forest patron Antony Worrall Thompson and reads as follows:
Save Our Pubs and Clubs: Amend the Smoking Ban
Since the introduction of the smoking ban there has been a dramatic increase in pub closures. Working men's clubs have been hit badly too. The ban has damaged local communities with thousands of people deciding to stay at home instead of going out. Let's be fair. Tobacco is a legal product. In Britain ten million adult smokers contribute £10 billion a year in tobacco taxation alone. It's only right that they should be accommodated in some public places. If the government doesn't want adults to smoke at home in front of the children or litter the streets, they should be allowed to smoke in pubs and clubs. Give licensees and customers a choice. We want the smoking ban amended so landlords can choose to provide a separate, well-ventilated smoking room for adults who wish to smoke. Let common sense prevail. A modest change in the law is all we ask.
We'll give it one or two days and if AWT's petition doesn't appear we'll reassess the situation, probably throwing our weight behind Daniel's petition.
Update: I have just checked our records and Daniel Connolly is a registered supporter of the Save Our Pubs and Clubs campaign. He also registered to attend our reception at the House of Commons in June but work intervened and he couldn't come.
Reader Comments (15)
Glad to see this come to light - it's vital that we all support one or two. We certainly don't want to have a couple of hundred milling about. Simon - I'll take your lead when you suggest which one we get behind!
Thanks, Mark. We'll monitor the situation over the next few days and make a decision early next week, by which time we should know the fate of AWT's petition. If there is a decision to make it will be based on which petition is likely to attract the greatest number of supporters, smokers and non-smokers, over the next 12 months.
Yes, I'm happy to follow your lead Simon. As there are already a couple floating about on there, perhaps we should sign them too? I'm guessing we can sign more than one.
Is it not possible to register a vote on more than one petition? I realise that there will be checks in place (or at least, I would assume there will be) to prevent multiple votes from one person on any one petition, but surely voting on one petition shouldn't preclude being able to vote on another? I may want to vote on two or more petitions dealing with totally different subjects. Would I be able to vote on only one subject? Surely not...
I'm holding fire for the moment, but I would like to be able to vote on all the petitions to amend the ban.
People can sign as many petitions as they like but it makes sense to promote just one because to do otherwise will confuse things. It will also stretch people's patience.
nisakiman – You can sign more than one petition or as many as you like, you can’t however sign the same one twice, unless you have another email account. If you have multiple accounts then you can multiple sign one petition.
At most there will be two or three petitions with slight variations on one issue; the rest relating to the same issue will be rejected. In actual fact it would pay to send in more petitions about the smoking ban knowing that it would be rejected, because politicians would be aware of the strength of feeling on one particular issue. If you were to have scores of rejected petitions on the smoking ban then that would send a pretty strong message – and there are a lot of rejected smoking ban petitions.
I don’t think signing two petitions would confuse or stretch anyone’s patience - unless you're called Simon.
If there are two petitions regarding the smoking ban, then sign them both – as I have done. It wouldn’t make sense to sign one but not the other.
I strongly suggest we just support one.
And the one I suggest we support IMMEDIATELY is the simplest: Daniel Connolly's.
His is clear and to the point with no waffle.
IF it gets to a debate, all the points made by all other would-be petitioners will be aired.
There should be no rivalry as to who 'owns' any petition up there, and no group putting other petitions up now and being "splittist" ;)
THE SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT THING IS TO GET OVER 100,000 SIGNATURES.
It would be a great step forward to see FOREST, Forest Eireann, both F2Cs, and every other group whether pro-choice or pro-smoking or pro-vaping working together on this.
(@ Nisakiman: for the first time we disagree! No matter, "tha ta poume, more mou!")
whoops. sorry nisakiman. my last line comment was addressed to jj with whom i do disagree.
Keep up the good work Simon, I truly believe that an amendment can be achieved, good luck
"It would be a great step forward to see FOREST, Forest Eireann, both F2Cs, and every other group whether pro-choice or pro-smoking or pro-vaping working together on this."
Totally agree Lysistrata. I'd also really like to see these groups (and Forces and TICAP) coming together for a meeting on strategy and what role each org can play as part of one unified force. We should all be working together in our separate ways for the same aim. To me that is the end of the denormalisation programme, an end to public funding of fake charities AKA self interest political lobby groups, and reminding Govt of its duty to be impartial and independent on behalf of ALL of its citizens.
This whole issue is not just about the smoking ban which is just the tool used as a lever for the rest and to persuade the wider public to accept that smokers are vile and selfish people who should be hounded out of all society.
None of the rest that is happening and being pushed now - ie : old people being kicked out of homes, people being denied health care, discriminated against in jobs, outdoor bans, car bans, home bans - would even be talked about had they not got that first all important step - denying property owners the right to cater for their customers' choice in their own properties which up until July 2007 were private and not publically owned.
We really need to get more uniformly organised. When is the first meeting on strategy and who is happy to arrange it?
JJ, I disagree with signing loads, I mean to say if you send an email to your chums and say sign all these petitions then they are less likely to bother at all. If you send an email with just one to sign,
I would guess they would be much more likely to sign it, especially if it has a clear message that non-smokers can sympathise with.
There are only two to sign, not loads.
Oh, sign 'em both and be damned!
Only 2 at the moment...
How can they reject petitions on the basis that there's already one running on the same subject when they've got dozens calling for restoration of the death penalty and a similar number calling for it not to be restored? Is there a gentle perfume of Rat around here?
Hopefully this is just a glitch in my computer or in the system but all of my links to the e-petition site are failing to connect, including signiture/email verification. Maybe Misty's Rat is bigger than we thought