8ball
World is a fuck
Yeah, it was, wasn't it? I wonder why?
I don't even live in Camberwell!
Mate of mine lives in Camberwell - might mention it next time I speak to her.
London pubs closing at the rate of one almost every other day....
- Thread starter editor
- Start date
Mate of mine lives in Camberwell - might mention it next time I speak to her.
editor
hiraethified
Nothing 'shaky' about defending the rights of workers and drinkers not to have their health threatened by the selfish actions of others. Or do you think you have some sort of right to harm others through your addiction?
And your bizarre diversion about car pollution isn't helping prop up your piss weak argument either. Surely the point is to reduce all dangerous pollution, and asking smokers to stand outside for a few minutes is hardly the greatest imposition on human rights know to mankind.
Oh, and if you're going to persist with this curious comparison with vehicle pollution, could you produce some 'car vs smoking' comparative health risk studies please?
harpo
Listening to Radio Jackie
It's the price rises. I like the odd fag with a beer but I don't mind the ban because I smoke less. It hasn't stopped me going to the pub at all, but what is pissing me off is the rising price of a pint. It's not uncommon to pay £3.40 for a pint now in the same pubs that charged around £2.80 a year or so ago. That's a ridiculous increase. I find it hard to support big breweries taking the piss.
DotCommunist
So many particulars. So many questions.
arghh homophones
And clearly you never frequente small old mans pubs before the ban. The clientel was always small. I used em because you could consume a beer and a newspaper without the rowdiness of other pubs.
But these pubs couldn't adapt to food serving or outside smoking areas, but fuck 'em eh? and fuck the people who worked there.
PacificOcean
Unhinged User
You've made your point, DC, repeatedly.
Can we get back to bemoaning the loss of pubs now?
There is a real ale pub in Camberwell, which I have mentioned on here before, which only re-opened relatively recently, and completely failed to catch the market (does that phrase exist? I know what I mean), and I think it is going to close any day, causing the landlord to lose his life savings, which he pumped into it. Nothing to do with the smoking ban, frankly, but to do with the fact that the "pub culture" in this country is changing, and it seems you can only survive if you run a gastropub or a music/comedy pub, whereas Jamie Hooper, who put all his money into what is now called Hoopers Bar, tried to set up a CAMRA pub, with the focus on the beer. He told us, when he set it up, that he was going to renovate the kitchen and do food, but only after he had established the business, and he has failed to do that, so far!
Unfortunately, his plans for a micro brewery have clearly been put on hold, and the couple he brought in to help him, who were brewers by trade, have moved on, leaving one grumpy and bored bar man plus the landlord. However, if anyone lives near East Dulwich station (but pub claims to be in East Dulwich, based on that, but it is actually in Camberwell), and you want to save a real ale pub from certain demise - get yourselves down there!
In fact, it's a fantastic place for an Urban75 Do of some kind or another. Perhaps I could renovate the idea of an U75 quiz night, which was mooted a while back. They might even be into hosting other stuff.
Anyway, this is turning into an essay, so I am moving on.....
But doesn't the smoking ban effect this type of pub?
If you use to go into an old style boozer there would be a thick haze of smoke from all the old boys who would be in there for hours.
The type of customer who goes to a pub now and doesn't want to smoke tends to want deep fried camembert and contiental largers with a range of newspapers dotted about.
DotCommunist
So many particulars. So many questions.
of course it is. But you're right, restrict the smojer rather than the car. that makes so much more sense doesn't it?
Those workers are under as much carcinogenic exposure as a smoky pub when they walk the street but lets ignore that shall we?
DotCommunist
So many particulars. So many questions.
yeah fine, carry on bemoaning the loss with out acknowledging that a hugely unpopular bit of ledg has contributed to it. Just don't expect me to join in the teeth-gnashing.
Reap what you have sown and don't have the arrogance to moan about the taste
editor
hiraethified
I don't suppose you've twigged that the reason why so many 'old mans pubs' have closed is precisely because landlords can't survive from the takings of a near empty pub populated by a few old men supping hourly half pint?
Yes. And it was a dreadful health risk for the staff and fellow drinkers. I'm glad those days are now over, while smokers are still free to enjoy their addiction just a few steps outside.
Your logic is still woefully shaky on this one, but could you produce some credible stats for this claim please?
Guineveretoo
Mostly bewildered
Maybe, but I think he is suffering largely because he didn't have an established clientele (he bought a derelict pub) before the smoking ban.
bluestreak
HomosexualityIsStalin’sAtomBombtoDestroyAmerica
DotCommunist
So many particulars. So many questions.
Right so they managed beforehand through miracles.
You ain't getting stats at this hour, but I'll dig summat up tommorrow. I'd saved a couple of reports on the subject on me laptop.
The point however, is that you bemoan the closures. You cite a source that includes the ban as one of its principle factors. You supported the ban slavishly.
Whats that word.......begins with an H...you've levelled it at me at least once this thread...
Guineveretoo
Mostly bewildered
As I said - you have made your point, and now you are just repeating it. I was merely trying to get the thread back on topic, because, frankly, it's getting a bit boring because it's you and editor saying the same thing to each other over and over....
Whereas, I seem to be doing a sales pitch for a pub in Camberwell!
(That doesn't mean that I agree with you, by the way, just that I think it's been stated, so time to move on).
FridgeMagnet
Administrator
I very much doubt many people stopped going to pubs of an evening because they couldn't smoke. It's only a short walk to the door after all, and personally I quite like spending a bit of time in a pub and not smoking as much as I would at home - also, it's a great excuse to cut off a dull conversation.
As I said earlier though I do think it would put off passing trade. If I was out shopping or on business, say, and I was a bit knackered, before I might pop into a pub for a pint and a sit down and a fag and a read of the paper. Now I won't. What's the point of going in to get a pint, then going out for a fag?
In fairness, I think the smoking ban probably has hit such pubs particularly hard, because a certain proportion of the sort of people who used to spend all day sitting at the bar supping pints slowly and smoking have transferred their custom to places that have space for a covered smoking area outside. A lot of the dingier, smaller pubs don't, and they seem to be the ones closing most often. Pubs without space at least for a table or two outside were always going to lose out from the smoking ban. But since many of the grimier pubs were probably operating on a bit of a knife-edge and have been for some time, rising beer prices and falling custom were going to harm them anyway. The smoking ban is definitely a factor in the loss of pubs but only one among several.
8ball
World is a fuck
I don't think there's anything so wrong with being behind the smoking ban and bemoaning the fact that so many pubs are closing down. It seems like a perfectly reasonable position to take.
You'd have to be a complete idiot to not see the obvious causal link, but there are more causes involved than just the smoking ban. Teasing apart the relative contribution of different causes is an impossible task, though, and I suspect wishful thinking on the part of anyone who thinks they can say for sure.
You'd have to be a complete idiot to not see the obvious causal link, but there are more causes involved than just the smoking ban. Teasing apart the relative contribution of different causes is an impossible task, though, and I suspect wishful thinking on the part of anyone who thinks they can say for sure.
bluestreak
HomosexualityIsStalin’sAtomBombtoDestroyAmerica
I certainly agree with your first para, but I dunno about your second, cos I stopped doing that sort of thing before the smoking ban came in.
bluestreak
HomosexualityIsStalin’sAtomBombtoDestroyAmerica
8ball
World is a fuck
editor
hiraethified
I'll very much look forward to seeing these stats that prove that pub workers are "under as much carcinogenic exposure as a smoky pub when they walk the street."
harpo
Listening to Radio Jackie
There's a pub by me called the Wenlock Arms. I couldn't tell you what the formula for success is, it's qute scruffy but there's live music and they let dogs in and serve about 7 types of real ale. It's always full, even when others in the area aren't.
lighterthief
Well-Known Member
It's a well-renowned pub in real ale circles (particularly for its range of beer) and has been for years - some people travel a fair way to drink there.
FridgeMagnet
Administrator
Well, I'm sure you can empathise in retrospect. You fancy a sit down and partaking of your recreational drugs of choice - not for long though. As a smoker and a drinker that means you want to smoke and drink. It takes a bit of time to drink a pint, and (certainly for me, and particularly given that booze brings on fags) I get twitchy if I'm drinking and not smoking. That sort of experience just isn't relaxing, and if I wanted to have a pint and a fag I'd be standing outside the place for the whole time - might as well buy a can and sit on a bench really.
Oddly enough I mind it a lot less if I know I'm there for a while, as I know I'm not limited by time.
harpo
Listening to Radio Jackie
I know. I'm glad I just live round the corner. I favour their ciders.
bluestreak
HomosexualityIsStalin’sAtomBombtoDestroyAmerica
Fair dos, I do indeed empathise somewhat.
Guineveretoo
Mostly bewildered
Just to show that I am not only bemoaning (what a good word that is!) the potential demise of a pub in Camberwell, and to allow myself to be drawn into the smoking ban stuff, I know of several pubs in Cambridge which are really struggling, and one in particular, the Live and Let Live, which used to be really popular, but is unlikely to be able to survive for much longer. I cite it here because I know the problem is the same in quite a few London pubs....
I remember this pub from when I first moved to Cambridge in the 70s, and checked out all the pubs I could find (I actually bought a pub map, stuck it up on the wall of my bedsit and stuck pins in the pubs as I visited them!), and it was kind of a back street old man's pub. More recently, it was refurbished, and became one of the early gastropubs, and was very successful. However, unlike a lot of pubs in Cambridge, it doesn't have a garden, or even a yard, and has been badly hit by the smoking ban as a consequence. Pubs nearby have put money into developing attractive outside smoking areas (so I end up a bit lonely, sitting in the pub on my own, whilst all my smoking friends are outside in the sociable area!), the Live and Let Live is under threat. The council and the local folks complain if the drinkers go out onto the street to smoke (it's a pub on the corner, and people were gathering and getting a tad noisy), and the police have been called to move people on. So, the pub is under threat, and solely and only because of the smoking ban.
I remember this pub from when I first moved to Cambridge in the 70s, and checked out all the pubs I could find (I actually bought a pub map, stuck it up on the wall of my bedsit and stuck pins in the pubs as I visited them!), and it was kind of a back street old man's pub. More recently, it was refurbished, and became one of the early gastropubs, and was very successful. However, unlike a lot of pubs in Cambridge, it doesn't have a garden, or even a yard, and has been badly hit by the smoking ban as a consequence. Pubs nearby have put money into developing attractive outside smoking areas (so I end up a bit lonely, sitting in the pub on my own, whilst all my smoking friends are outside in the sociable area!
), the Live and Let Live is under threat. The council and the local folks complain if the drinkers go out onto the street to smoke (it's a pub on the corner, and people were gathering and getting a tad noisy), and the police have been called to move people on. So, the pub is under threat, and solely and only because of the smoking ban.DotCommunist
So many particulars. So many questions.
iirc the report im on about simply states that car fume exposure is as bad as ciggarette fume exposure.
And you may not be aware of it because you live there, but central london streets are as smoke=ridden as the pubs once were.
Still, while your crying over pub closures you can take comfort in the fact the remaining chain-owned characterless shitholes have a no-smoking policy
Guineveretoo
Mostly bewildered
For crying out loud. You will not be diverted, will you? 
DotCommunist
So many particulars. So many questions.
oh and I very much look forward to you explaining how you get to cry about pub closures when the very source in your OP states the ban as a principle factor.
Cause it looks like the most bewildering bit of reasoning from here.
'I don't like smoking in pubs, ban it'
'heres a report about closures that makes me a sad panda and it cites the ban as a principle factor in the closures'
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