Cultural vandalism - the smoking ban decimated pubs in Britain & Ireland
Thursday, August 24, 2023 at 15:05 I was interested but not surprised to read that:
Almost a quarter (22.5 per cent) of Ireland’s pubs – almost 2,000 in total – have called time forever since 2005, a report from the Drinks Industry Group of Ireland (DIGI) found.
See: Ireland’s pubs closing at faster rate than ever before in major blow to tourism (Telegraph)
Did anything happen that might, conceivably, have kick-started this startling drop in the number of pubs in Ireland?
Hmmm, let me think. Oh yes, in 2004 smoking was banned in every single pub and bar in the country.
Within months of the ban being introduced, the Vintners Federation of Ireland was claiming that many of its members had experienced a significant drop in sales since the introduction of the ban.
The VFI said small, rural, family-owned pubs and pubs in border counties had been hit particularly hard by the measure.
The VFI claimed daytime trade had dropped off considerably since the smoking ban came into force, with many customers staying in the pub for a shorter period of time.
That was in June 2004.
Two months later, in August 2004, I went to Ireland and visited several towns and cities (including Galway, Waterford, and Kilkenny) to see for myself what impact the ban was having on pubs and bars.
With my own eyes and by speaking to local people, including bar owners and staff, I discovered that some pubs that had previously been open at lunch were now closed until 5.00pm, when they would finally open their doors.
I was told that the elderly pipe-smoking beer drinkers who used to gather for a pint at lunch were staying away now they could no longer smoke indoors.
In 2010 a report commissioned by Forest for the Save Our Pubs & Clubs: Amend the Smoking Ban campaign noted that:
Using data from [Ireland’s] Revenue Commissioners, researchers found that the number of pub losses demonstrate a very close statistical relationship between the introduction of the smoking ban in 2004 and the rapid decline of the Irish pub ...
Analysis of statistics set out in the Statistical Report on the Revenue website showed that Ireland lost 1,097 pubs in the four years immediately following the ban.
Researchers found a striking similarity between the rate of closures in Ireland following the ban, and those in Scotland, England and Wales following theirs – despite considerable differences between the pub traditions.
See ‘Smoking gun: is the smoking ban a major cause of the decline of the pub in Britain and Ireland?’
Needless to say, although the DIGI report has analysed stats going back to 2005, the year after the smoking ban was introduced in Ireland, the report (The Irish Pub: Supporting our communities) doesn’t mention the ban at all.
Am I surprised? Of course not. Despite the evidence, it’s rare to find anyone who will admit that the ban contributed to the serious decline in the pub estates in both Britain and Ireland.
In March 2009, for example, I noted that:
New Labour's favourite think tank, the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR), has today published a report entitled Pubs and Places: the social value of community pubs.
Supported by the likes of CAMRA and Alcohol Concern, the report found that the main factors contributing to the rise in pub closures include:
* Competition from shops and supermarkets where alcohol is much cheaper, which has led to more people drinking at home
* The current recession which has reduced pub incomes
* Increases in tax on beer
* The prices that some pub tenants have to pay the large pub companies for their beer
* A fall in beer drinking and a growth in wine drinking
* Increased regulation which small community pubs find the hardest to deal with
Incredibly, just two years after the smoking ban had been introduced, it had been airbrushed out as a potential contributory factor in the sharp increase in closures.
Meanwhile, a Forest report published in 2017 to mark the tenth anniversary of the ban in England found that 20 per cent of the entire pub estate in England in 2006 (ie before the ban) had subsequently closed in the decade after the ban.
In total, there were 11,383 fewer pubs in England compared to 2006, a decline of 20.7 per cent since the smoking ban was introduced on July 1, 2007. (‘The Road to Ruin: The impact of the smoking ban on pubs and personal choice’.)
No-one, least of all Forest, denied there were other issues in play, but the smoking ban was clearly a significant factor too, and what infuriated us was the blatant attempt to sweep the impact of the ban under the carpet.
Make no mistake, the smoking ban was cultural vandalism. Introduced on the flimsy pretext that it would ‘save’ the lives of thousands of bar workers who had previously been ‘forced’ to breathe environmental tobacco smoke, the policy was a disaster for the pub industry.
I’m not suggesting we continue to fight old battles - it’s too late for that - but it’s not too late to fight attempts to ban smoking outside pubs and bars, whether that’s in beer gardens or new licensed pavement areas, before even more pubs are forced out of business.
But more on that next month.
Reader Comments (4)
It may indeed be too late to fight old battles, Simon
Quitters finish first
Health warning: giving up smoking can kill
16th October 2007
"The danger of cigarettes is mostly not in smoking them, argues a study by three doctors at the KS Hegde Medical Academy in Mangalore, India."
"The clinically high correlation between smoking and carcinoma of the lungs has been the focal point in societal campaigns against the habit and the tobacco lobby." But their experience with patients suggests to them a different, seldom-told story. "We are struck by the more than casual relationship between the appearance of lung cancer and an abrupt and recent cessation of the smoking habit in many, if not most, cases."
"Each had been addicted to the habit no less than 25 years, smoking in excess of 20 sticks a day. The striking direct statistical correlation between cessation of smoking to the development of lung malignancies, more than 60% plus, is too glaring to be dismissed as coincidental."
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2007/oct/16/highereducation.research1
NHS lung cancer tests for every ex-smoker
21 June 2023
"Mass checks from middle age set to be rolled out under landmark plan to boost survival rates"
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/06/21/nhs-lung-cancer-tests-every-former-smoker-scan/
I would argue that fighting for the liberty to enjoy a legitimate adult consumer product in privately owned property with the consent of the owner is still a battle worth fighting because otherwise we give in and say it is OK for Government to tell us what we should eat, drink, or not smoke in our own homes. It may not be trendy or fashionable to fight for the right to smoke but it is still important because, as you have said before, smokers are the canaries in the civil liberties coal mine.
The new battle must be about ensuring fairness for all which includes allowing smokers to meet like minded people in venues where they can enjoy each others company without harassment. We do not want it all, but we should have something and somewhere to go because it is the right thing to do.
It is precisely because the cultural vandals got away with the scam of banning smokers, and then dishonestly suggesting that the devastation of the pub industry was nothing to do with them, that they will get away with it again.
They know only too well that once a ban is imposed, smokers will scuttle off, forget about it, feel disgusted with themselves, and adapt to new levels of bullying and exclusion.
I will argue until my last breath that both sides of this issue should and could be accommodated. I will never forget how the killjoys broke communities, socially excluded people and called it "inclusion," and forced good people out of business and their staff to unemployment in the name of ideology that used health as a front.
In truth, despite the crocodile tears, and hand wringing about pub closures, the very same people are delighted that the smoking ban had the knock on effect of killing pub culture. It was too white, too working class, and people drank too much alcohol there.
Fight for everything back or lose the lot including the next battle to stop exclusion of smokers from not only outdoor areas but also from their own public housing.
It’s a funny attitude that our great leaders now have, isn’t it? A sort of badly-intentioned version of “Keep Calm and Carry On.” If they want to introduce a deeply unpopular policy, they simply keep repeating how massively popular it is, how much everybody wants this, and how wonderful life will be once it’s in, and brushing aside any critics, usually by finding a suitably-fashionable insult to throw at them to “prove” how unworthy their opinions are (“deniers,” “sceptics,” “conspiracy theorists” and “fake news-spreaders” being the favourites at the moment)
If they have already introduced one and it has had a noticeably detrimental effect in some way, then they quite simply studiously ignore it as if it had never happened (as per the Irish report you mention, Simon). They refuse to refer to it in respect of said detrimental effect (unless it’s to talk of it as a glorious success-story), they perform quite astonishing feats of mental gymnastics in order to find some other reason for the problem, and they’ll torture every set of statistics they can get their hands on to “prove” that the problem isn’t actually happening, even as it quite clearly is, right in front of everyone’s eyes! It isn’t just smoking, either – although that did set the ball rolling – they do it now in respect of every policy that they know people are unhappy about. “Keep Calm and Carry On” indeed!
It’s a bit like the Indian study that Rose cites, above. I’ll bet that at the time of imposing the ban there were more than a few members of the PTB who had this brought to their attention, or who maybe stumbled upon it when looking for anti-smoking research papers to back up their pre-set opinions. But was it ever mentioned? Not a squeak! It was quietly buried along with any of the other studies which didn’t suit their desired agenda.
And now, as many on here - including yourself Simon, from time to time - have previously said, they’re starting to roll out the same old tactics in the direction of all number of other areas of life. To anyone in any position of power and influence who has even the slightest inclination to abuse that position (and we do seem to have rather a lot of those, at the moment, don’t we?) the whole anti-smoking movement really has been a perfect lesson in how to do it and how to get away with it. Shameful.
Heres another one from California, Misty
Many Lung Cancer Patients Stopped Smoking Years Before Diagnosis
July 14, 2010 (Los Angeles, California)
"Sixty percent of our cohort developed lung cancer despite doing the right thing by stopping smoking over 1 decade ago," according to the researchers."
"In 1995, California passed one of the first antismoking laws in the nation when it banned smoking in enclosed workspaces. This might have encouraged more people to quit smoking than in other parts of the country and might help account for the preponderance of patients in the earlier stages of cancer."
https://web.archive.org/web/20130118020726/http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/725138
It makes grim reading.