Anti-smoking group launches scathing attack on Smoking Charter
Anti-smoking lobby group ASH has released a scathing response to the Charter Group's success on smoking, much to the anger of the trade.
ASH branded the terms of the Charter "unbelievably easy" and the results produced by the Charter Group last month as "pathetic".
Last week the trade's Charter Group revealed that 63 per cent of pubs in England and Wales are now compliant with the Charter - beating the minimum 50 per cent requirement agreed with the government.
The Charter promotes self-regulation on smoking through the use of signage, good ventilation and no-smoking areas where possible. Industry leaders hope the success of the initiative will give a signal to the government that self-regulation is the way forward for the pub trade rather than an outright smoking ban.
But Deborah Arnott, director of ASH, said: "For pub leaders to claim this voluntary approach has been a success is a joke. This is an embarrassment for the government and it should distance itself from this pathetic Charter as quickly as possible."
Its attack follows a disappointing statement by the Department of Health (DoH) last week which called for more to be done about second-hand smoke.
Oliver Griffiths, from Atmosphere Improves Results (AIR) which promotes the Charter, said that ASH was not interested in a constructive solution to the smoking issue. "It is hard to say that the Charter Group's progress has been pathetic, in view of the results we have achieved. Its comments are not helpful."
His concern is that public knowledge of the Charter is poor, because of lack of publicity from the DoH. He wants customers to be better informed.
"Customers can then make decisions on the choices available to them. We are not in that position yet and we need to solve that problem," he said.
Mark Hastings, spokesman for the British Beer & Pub Association, said: "What else did you expect ASH to say? Any rational person would look at the results and praise the effort that the industry has put in to meeting the targets set by the government and the industry. It has, in fact exceeded them by some distance."
