Four years on, the smoking ban is popular and defintive claims that it has led to more pubs shutting are unsubstantiated.
By Amanda Sandford, Research Manager of Action on Smoking and Health (ASH)
England’s pubs and restaurants went smokefree four years ago today. To mark the event ASH has released new data which shows that public support for the measure remains high: 78% of the population are in favour of the law, including almost half of all smokers (47%). Now more smokers support than oppose the law. Meanwhile, an independent review of the impact of the smokefree law found no significant decrease in the number of people visiting pubs or restaurants before or after the legislation.
How very different to the claims made by the Save Our Pubs and Clubs campaign that the smokefree law is causing pubs to close and that the way to solve the problem is to bring the smoke back into pubs.
So who exactly would support such a move? And who is behind the thinly disguised campaign to amend one of the most popular pieces of health legislation every introduced?
A handful of MPs have put their names to the ‘Save Our Pubs’ campaign but the main protagonist is the tobacco-industry funded pressure group, FOREST and Japan Tobacco International. The claim that many pubs blame the smoking ban for the loss of business is hardly proof of cause and effect.
Other shaky data were revealed in a briefing on the pub trade pre- and post the public places smokefree law which claims that there has been a “marked decline” in the number of pubs in the UK since the implementation of the smoking bans.
This appears to be an update of earlier research by the same organisation – Corporate Responsibility Consulting – which established a “very close relationship” between the rate of decline of pubs and the implementation of smoking bans.
The authors don’t appear to disclose their funders but they have form. Their client list includes the Tobacco Manufacturers Association. The calls might be new but the claims are as stale as the air in a smoky pub.
These reports use what they call a “subjective” definition of pubs. Such surveys have been known to reclassify pubs as restaurants and so claim they have “closed” as pubs when they are simply selling more food. In fact the business stays open, the staff keep their jobs, the name of the bar doesn’t change.
But why not use an objective measure? After all, we know precisely how many licences were issued and the number of premises licensed for on sale and off sale increased by 5% the year England and Wales went smokefree and has risen every year since.
Of course pubs, like all small businesses have been hard hit by the recession. But the tobacco lobby group assertion that thousands of pubs in England and Wales are under threat of closure due to the smoking ban does not stand up to scrutiny. The British public are enjoying the benefits of smokefree drinking and dining and there is little appetite for a return to the bad old days of smoke-filled pubs.
To reach hundreds of thousands of new readers and to make the biggest impact we can in the next general election, we need to grow our donor base substantially.
That's why in 2024, we are seeking to generate 150 additional regular donors to support Left Foot Forward's work.
We still need another 124 people to donate to hit the target. You can help. Donate today.
57 Responses to “Happy smoking ban day everybody! – don’t believe big tobacco’s corporate spin”
Jo
I really can’t see why people are complaining about the ban as most of the pubs where I live get the ashtrays out once the pub has closed and there is no fear of being caught and fined. There are more people drinking ‘after hours’ than there are during actual opening hours. A few pubs are actually ‘closing’ at 9 p.m. and throwing everybody out except the regulars that are either smokers or with smokers. Then the doors are locked and it is a ‘private party’
This is most unfair to people that want to have a drink but are not ‘invited’ as they are anti smoking.
BILL WORKING CLASS
ASH.are at it again.Keeping themselves in highly paid jobs.On their website they state.WE DON’T CONDONE OR CONDEMN SMOKERS.
So why don’t they keep their mouths shut.MONEY.MONEY. Thats why.
Simon Sherlock
Here we go again. Is that all you have now, ASH? The one debating tool to counter every objection being to point to the opponent’s funding?
You’re funded by government, big pharma, and ‘supporting charities’. You’re as tainted in that respect as those you target.
Where are your massed hordes? Where are your rallies? You receive, as a charity a paltry figure, but enjoy all the perks of charitable status. Without vested interest funding, you’d struggle to pay the business rates on a small office. Yet you’re paid how much Amanda?
You’re an insult to every hard-working person in this country. You make working class lives worse by destroying their leisure (the vast majority of pub closures have been ones described by those who don’t like them as ‘chav pubs’), and have the gall to pump your tax-funded propaganda on a site which purports to care about working people.
Debate properly, or stop using this tired old line of others being ‘bought’. Your entire existence relies on the taxes of others and the approval of corporate interests who benefit from your selective bile.
Harold Wilson would be spinning in his grave at what you are doing. Shame on LFF for again allowing a platform for naked corporate shills like ASH.
Junican
The claims of ASH become more and more hilarious every day.
Is this the Amanda Sandford who welcomed the efforts of Stony Stratford to ban smoking in the streets on the health grounds of spit on cigarette ends? Ha! Ha! Ha! Tell me another, Amanda.
Mark Butcher
It’s worth remembering that this article has been written by people who are paid for by tax-payers.ASH could not support its activities on private donations alone. Pubs have closed in their thousands – to deny that is idiocy – and smoking rates have not fallen. Stop tax payers money going to ASH.