It’s No Smoking Day today (yawn).
You can always tell when this annual ‘event’ – launched in 1984 – is imminent because a handful of councils invariably seize the opportunity to launch some pointless anti-smoking initiative.
On Monday it was the turn of East Sussex County Council to announce that they were designating two beaches in their area as ‘smoke-free zones’.
Naturally, this was said to be a ‘first’ for England (although I’m pretty sure Bournemouth beat them to it in 1994 and again more recently).
However the scheme is ‘voluntary’ so it’s impossible to enforce other than by guilt-tripping smokers into complying.
They hope to achieve this by promoting the idea that the policy is designed to 'protect children, young people, and the environment from the harmful effects of smoking'.
According to Rob Tolfree, acting director of East Sussex Public Health, “Second-hand smoke is just as toxic outdoors as it is indoors.”
This is complete nonsense, of course, and I'd love to see the evidence on which he is basing this claim, but we live in a world where people, including council officials, are free make all sorts of absurd assertions and they get away with it because very few people (including journalists) can be bothered to challenge them.
Anyway, I've had a quick look online to see if there are any major stunts taking place to promote No Smoking Day 2025 and the best I can find is this:
A major Liverpool landmark is set to take centre stage with a powerful call for smokers to quit, this No Smoking Day (Wednesday, 12th March).
St John’s Beacon will be illuminated and transformed into a visual display, reinforcing the health benefits of stopping smoking and inspiring positive change across the city.
The Beacon will feature an animated image of a burning cigarette that gradually disappears, unveiling a series of powerful health messages symbolising the journey to a smoke-free life.
Also known as Radio City Tower, I was interviewed there once by Radio City (now Hits Radio Liverpool) after the station took over what had previously been a revolving restaurant a level or two below the top of the tower.
In those pre-blog days I wrote:
Thursday June 3, 2004
To Liverpool to do two interviews, one for BBC Radio Merseyside, the second for City Radio. I missed the last train north and had to drive to Liverpool from Cambridgeshire, arriving at my city centre hotel, directly opposite the BBC, at 3.30am. Considering that I had been awake for 22 hours without sleep I think I drove rather well!
BBC Merseyside wanted to record their item in the local shopping centre, an old Seventies-style shopping mall where smoking is still allowed in one section of the rather cramped food hall, much to the annoyance of SmokeFree Liverpool which is campaigning to make Liverpool 'smokefree' by 2008, the year the city is handed the title 'European Capital of Culture'.
Personally I would have thought most Liverpudlians would want the city to be crime free rather than smoke free, and said as much.
From St John's Shopping Centre I made my way to City Radio which broadcasts from Liverpool's answer to London's BT Tower. Like the former Post Office Tower, the City Radio HQ used to be a restaurant. I can't fault the panoramic view but I wouldn't like to work here. It’s quite unnerving to be this high up with no visible signs of support.
Anyway, if illuminating an unlovely tower in Liverpool is the best they can do to promote No Smoking Day in 2025 then it really is time to put this irrelevant PR dinosaur out of its misery.
Apart from a few councils and NHS trusts (all taxpayer funded, of course), and the likes of ASH, no-one cares.
Below: The Liberty Club of St Andrews marks No Smoking Day in 2002. Photo courtesy of Alex Singleton
