In ten days Scotland will "celebrate" the fifth anniversary of the public smoking ban north of the border.
Last week I spoke to journalists from two newspapers - the Mail on Sunday (Scotland) and Scotland on Sunday - and their reports duly appeared at the weekend.
SoS asked Five years on, just what has the smoking ban really achieved and are we seeing a backlash?:
"There is still a great deal of anger in some quarters," says Simon Clark, director of Forest and the Save Our Pubs and Clubs campaign.
"It is certainly true that the majority of smokers have adapted to the ban, but it's one thing to have a high compliance rate, and quite another to claim it's hugely popular. The reason for the high compliance rate is that the penalties for flouting the ban are quite severe, not so much if you're a smoker, but if you're a landlord who turns a blind eye to smoking. Not only can you be fined several thousands of pounds, but you could potentially lose your licence."
Clark accepts that, having got used to smoke-free pubs and bars, non-smokers are unlikely to support a change in the law, but he wants to see it reviewed. "What we want is a small amendment that would allow those pubs and clubs that have the capability of offering a separate well-ventilated smoking room," he says. "You would keep the smokers well away from the non-smokers, so they would never need to be exposed. The bar staff wouldn't have to go in for at least an hour afterwards."
Clark says most European countries allow such rooms, but Ash Scotland thinks the suggestion is laughable. "We say what we've always said. A no-smoking zone in a pub is like a no-urinating zone in a swimming pool. Smoke will always drift through," says [chief executive Sheila] Duffy.
In a report headlined 'Five years on ... 740 pubs have pulled their last pint thanks to the smoking ban', the MoS disclosed that:
More than one in ten of Scotland's pubs – 740 in total - have gone out of business since the smoking ban came into force five years ago this month.
And while the country's 14 health boards say it has helped 174,222 Scots stop smoking, the licensed trade warns the closures have cost about 1,200 jobs, many in rural areas where pubs are significant sources of employment.
Now industry officials and pro-smoking lbbyists plan to launch a fresh challenge to the ban at Holyrood, warning it is pushing Scots into dangerous, 'uncontrolled' home drinking environments.
They want MSPs to allow special licenses to pubs so that they can establish designated 'smoking rooms', which are cordoned off from non-smokers.
The drive is being spearheaded by the Scottish Licensed Trade Association (SLTA) and the pro-smoking lobby group Forest.
Watch this space.
Update on Wednesday, March 16, 2011 at 14:06 by
Simon Clark
Just had an interesting conversation with a smoker, 43, who is a lecturer at a Scottish-based university.
He reports that far from giving up smoking, he has just started smoking a pipe in addition to cigarettes. (He prefers the pipe to a "quick fag".)
Talking about the smoking ban, he mentioned speaking to a trades unionist who, prior to the ban, used to meet a group of friends in a pub every Friday night and together they would each smoke a "large Cuban cigar". Now, he says, that pleasure has been "destroyed".
