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CW News

CWNews

Smoking Down in the UK; Pubs and Clubs Hurting Badly

The Daily Telegraph (LONDON)


What a drag it is having a smoke One year on, bingo halls, pubs and working men's clubs are counting the cost of the smoking ban, finds Adam Edwards

BYLINE: Adam Edwards July 1, 2008 Tuesday

W hen Mick Jagger's granddaughter, the privately educated15-year-old Assisi, was caught smoking a cigarette it was not so much the act of smoking that marked her out as a chip off the old Stone block, rather that the stogie was a roll-up.

The hand-rolled ciggie, once the preserve of the builder and the bum, has now become fashionable thanks to the legislation, introduced in England a year ago today, banning smoking in public places. It has turned the "rolley'' into a recherché accessory.

"It is easier to have a swift smoke with a roll-up,'' explained eventer Melody Keegan, as she took a drag on her skinny splinter of tobacco outside the drinks tent at the Badminton Horse Trials in May. "And it is cheaper because you are not throwing away a tailor-made cigarette after a couple of puffs.''

It may be unfashionable to say so, but the new craze for smoking roll-up cigarettes (and Imperial Tobacco, which owns Rizla cigarette papers, says it is a rapidly growing market here) is one of the few silver linings for the industry in the tobacco-ban cloud.

Pubs, clubs, bars, cafes and bingo halls are all suffering from the legislation.

Yesterday, a study by Cancer Research UK claimed that 400,000 people had quit smoking since the introduction of the ban and estimated 40,000 lives will be saved over the next decade. "These figures show the largest fall in the number of smokers on record,'' said Robert West, director of tobacco studies at the Health Behaviour Research Unit at University College London. "The effect has been as large in all social groups - poor, as well as rich. I never expected such a dramatic impact.''

Health experts may be celebrating but publicans have been gasping. The Campaign For Real Ale (Camra) has reported that over 50 pubs close every month, with one of the main reasons being the smoking ban.

The secretary of the Licensed Victuallers' Association in Wales was reported as saying that in six months there would hardly be a pub left in the valleys.

These predictions are backed up by grassroots opinion. Landlord Kevin Greenacre's takings at the Crown Inn, at Gissing in Norfolk, have plummeted almost 20 per cent in the past year. Furthermore, because the pub is a listed building the canvas smoking shelter he erected has been refused planning permission. "Without the shelter I can't survive,'' he says. "The ban has been disastrous.''

Elsewhere, 60 bingo halls have shut in the last 15 months, and more working men's clubs have closed in the past year than in any previous year. "An awful lot are hanging on by their fingertips,'' says Ken Smythe, general secretary of the Working Men's Club and Institute Union. "The next six to nine months are likely to see a lot more go under. I fear the end of the working man's club may be nigh.''

Meanwhile, all levels of society have been affected. Sales of Havana cigars have dropped by 25 per cent since last July, while shisha bars, where fruit-scented tobacco is smoked using a Middle Eastern water pipe, have been badly hit. "I have lost 60 per cent of my income,'' said Joseph Srure, of the Café du Liban, on London's Edgware Road. "They used to queue to get in, now I am empty. Most of the shisha bars here have shut.''
 
 

But there are attempts at a fight back. Smoking shelters are sprouting like weeds - and becoming more luxurious. The Hotel du Vin chain has built luxury cigar shacks with under-floor heating and blowers beneath the eaves to provide a wall of warm air. More importantly, the Campaign for Separate Smoking Rooms (CSSR) was launched last month. It plans a nationwide movement to get the ban revised, so that it allows smoking in properly ventilated, staff-free rooms in private clubs.
 
 
 
Cavalry and Guards Club, erecting outdoor smoking area

"We do not wish to reverse the smoking ban, but want sensible revisions to be made to it,'' says Ranald Macdonald, managing director of the London-based Scottish restaurant group Boisdale and a spokesman for the campaign. "The Government announced there would be a review of the smoking ban three years after it was introduced. This would mean a review in the summer of 2010. Significantly, this could be the year of the next general election. We will be encouraging Labour MPs to deliver on their 2005 manifesto, which stated: 'In membership clubs, the members will be free to choose whether to allow smoking or be smoke-free'.''

Despite the celebrations to mark the ban's first year anniversary, the CSSR is convinced its campaign could be successful. Until that day, its most visible standard bearers are likely to be those well-bred gals like Melody and Assisi flaunting their roll-ups.