General rant about cig bans & tax issues.

[Deb]

Originally Posted by The Flying Mouse

Wetherspoons is good at being what it is, and that is a licenced restaurant that does cheap and cheerful grub.
Wetherspoons is not a local pub dependant on local trade.
Wetherspoons is a high street brand like WH Smiths, Woolworths, or Burger King.
They live off passing trade.
Wetherspoons, to me, is not a pub.
Just somewhere that happens to sell food and drink.

I disagree 100%

Stevenage has two of them and they are 'local pubs' who do not rely on passing trade. People have made them their locals cause they cottened on to something clever. That people wanted cheaper food and drink. And IMO this is whats needed to over come the smoking ban and turn things around. Take a local near me, theyve turned themselves into a bikers pub, with secure parking for the bikes. They also built a proper smoking garden. And guess what, it worked. Everyone just has to find that something that will work, rather than keep blaming the smoking ban.

[The Flying Mouse]

Originally Posted by daveake

That's fine. The Wetherspoon figure came from, er, Wetherspoons. You're welcome to enlighten them as to the error of their ways. They've shown that it's perfectly possible to increase turnover whilst banning smoking.

Originally Posted by The Flying Mouse

:
Wetherspoons is good at being what it is, and that is a licenced restaurant that does cheap and cheerful grub.
Wetherspoons is not a local pub dependant on local trade.
Wetherspoons is a high street brand like WH Smiths, Woolworths, or Burger King.
They live off passing trade.
Wetherspoons, to me, is not a pub.
Just somewhere that happens to sell food and drink.

For the second time in this thread, i've nothing to add I ain't already said

[daveake]

Originally Posted by The Flying Mouse

Well that's very different from this neck of the woods hun.

Some pubs do food, but most are still places of DRINK.

I thought they were all going bust due to lack of trade? Ah well, maybe things aren't so bad ...

Dave

[Deb]

Originally Posted by The Flying Mouse

Of course you have the right to decide.

You have the right to be a non smoker in a non smoking pub.

You have the right to be a smoker in a smoking pub.

You have the right to be a non smoker sitting with friends in a smoking pub.

You have the right to be a smoker sitting with friends in a non smoking pub.

You have the right to be a smoker sitting alone in a non smoking pub with a diet coke instead of a beer.

You have the right to stop smoking.

You have the right to START smoking.


You have the right to do whatever the hell you want.


What is the problem with allowing some pubs to be smoking and the rest non smoking?

There are many problems with allowing that as I and everyone else here is saying. You are just choosing to ignore them.

[Hypnobabe]

Originally Posted by The Flying Mouse

Coming back to the NHS issue Claire, go to any A&E on a Saturday night, and you'll see more NHS pounds being literally bled all over the floor as a result of drunken fights, people hit by drink drivers, and drunken antics gone wrong than anything a smokers recovery time can do to a budget.

Fair point, as it happens I don't agree with money being spent by the NHS on idiots who don't know when to stop drinking either, but I don't think a quarter of the population are in A&E on a Saturday night, and that's the proportion of smokers in the UK. If you want to make that comparison, the drunken idiots who injure others through their actions are generally prosecuted, and there are more people at risk from passive smoking than getting lamped by someone down the pub.

And as for the cost, I come back to my earlier point, how many of those people injured by the drunken idiots are smokers, and have the excessive cost of recovery compared to the non-smokers? Do we put that down to the drunken idiot who injured them in the first place, or to the fact that they're smokers?

I still believe that we should all have a choice, but it does seem to me that until the ban came in, we non-smokers didn't really have one. I'm sorry for those people whose livelihoods are being affected, but that may also be down to the credit crunch as much as the smoking ban, there's less disposable income around, so people can't afford to go out as much as they used to.

[daveake]

Originally Posted by The Flying Mouse

(two separate quotes)

For the second time in this thread, i've nothing to add I ain't already said

You seem to have missed my reply re M&B ...

Dave

[The Flying Mouse]

Originally Posted by Deb

I disagree 100%

Stevenage has two of them and they are 'local pubs' who do not rely on passing trade.

Really?
That does actually come as a surprise.
But you've got to admit that there are exceptons to every rule.
As i've said pretty much through this thread, there are pubs that have done better, but IMHO they are in the minority.

[djfierce]

Originally Posted by Hypnobabe

but that may also be down to the credit crunch as much as the smoking ban, there's less disposable income around, so people can't afford to go out as much as they used to.

yep, i can only afford to go to a few Meat concerts this year

sorry just thought someone needed to take a breath here lol

[~Helen~]

I was really trying to stay out of this discussion but I just wanted to add a point that I don't think anyone has added yet, and that's you really can't have establishments with smoking/non smoking areas/rooms - as the smoke travels. I remember in the past dining at a restaurant where I had specifically requested the non-smoking area and the lady on the table next to me was smoking. She was in the smoking area. It reminds me of a cartoon I saw once, with two men standing at a bar (one smoking, one not), there's dotted line between them which is preventing the smoking man's smoke from spreading into the other man's 'area' which is identified as non-smoking. The caption is something along the lines of 'regulatory line which smoke must not cross'.

Of course I've hunted for ages for said cartoon and had no luck. So here's one suitable fitting to my theme instead



And this one just made me chuckle...

[Deb]

Originally Posted by The Flying Mouse

Really?
That does actually come as a surprise.
But you've got to admit that there are exceptons to every rule.
As i've said pretty much through this thread, there are pubs that have done better, but IMHO they are in the minority.

And who's to say the pubs by you aren't that exception? or are the rest of us just idiots when it comes to knowing anything about drinking and eating

[The Flying Mouse]

Originally Posted by Deb

or are the rest of us just idiots when it comes to knowing anything about drinking and eating

I don't see anyone calling anyone an idiot here Deb.

*sigh* I think we've just about got here...........

Stalemate.

[Deb]

Oh I think we got there the second nobody agreed that we didn't want smoking or no smoking pubs

[The Flying Mouse]

Originally Posted by The Flying Mouse

Supose we should just agree to differ on this

Which is why I said that two pages ago

[Deb]

So why carry on trying to convince us there should be both type of pubs then

[The Flying Mouse]

Because the thread stayed active.

[Deb]

you obviously have to have the last word so i'll bow out now

[The Flying Mouse]

Actually Deb, it was because there were several more points brought up (in 8 posts)that I thought worth discussing and elaborating on.


Not because i've got to have the "last word"
That makes it all sound rather childish.

Debate and discussion is what a forum is for isn't it?

[djfierce]

[Monstro]

[duke knooby]

lets have a poll... democracy lol

[KebLou]

Originally Posted by The Flying Mouse

The thing about a pub is that is a ADULT RECREATION AREA.

Passive smoking to children is not an option as children shouldn't be in the pub in the first place.

When do you become an adult? As you could be a *child* in a pub legally. Why shouldn't children be in a pub? I think it depends on the pub...

You still haven't answered my earlier question... You haven't proven that the smoking ban has had a detrimental effect to pubs.

[KebLou]

Originally Posted by The Flying Mouse

Most of the regulars are local to the area.This is the case of most "boozers".
Who is going to pay for meals at the pub when they can go and eat whatever they want at home?

You're not going to get anywhere selling food and drink in a place where it's not what the customer wants there and then.
You might as well stock McDonalds with beer and call it a shrewd business maneuver.

How many people eat at Wetherspoons 3/4/5 times a week?

Wetherspoons is good at being what it is, and that is a licenced restaurant that does cheap and cheerful grub.
Wetherspoons is not a local pub dependant on local trade.
Wetherspoons is a high street brand like WH Smiths, Woolworths, or Burger King.
They live off passing trade.
Wetherspoons, to me, is not a pub.
Just somewhere that happens to sell food and drink.

Sorry but 'Spoons is a brilliant place. Every Wednesday all of my student mates go to 'Spoons and have a few drinks and a meal and every week we see the same faces. So thats passing trade? Strange passing trade to me.

[SamCat]

I remembered earlier about how years ago British Rail used to make some carriages half smoking and half non-smoking We used to sit near the divide for the pure entertainment value of the bloody mindedness of both sides!!!

[Pudding]

If some pubs go bust because people can't smoke inside them then that's not such a bad thing.

Pud

[AndyK]

Anyone got a light?