Pubs and tobacco firms look to beat smoking ban

Tobacco companies are rumoured to be looking to strike up partnerships with licensees in order to ease the pain of the smoking ban.

Some tobacco firms are reportedly giving thousands of pounds to pubs to spend on their outside spaces - so customers can continue to enjoy a cigarette with their drink.

The money will be used to make pub car parks and back yards into attractive smoking areas.

Under the agreements, pubs are reportedly obliged to stock certain brands exclusively in exchange for handouts of thousands of pounds.

Robert Shaw, owner of the Firefly bar in Clapham, South London, told the Daily Mail he had secured a £3,500 arrangement with British American Tobacco to sell its Lucky Strike brand exclusively over the next two years.

He said: "A Lucky Strike representative came before Christmas to set up the deal.​

"He was saying British American Tobacco has got so much money lying around they are thinking of new ways to spend it and increase sales. The smaller business is probably going to lose trade after the smoking ban, so if a cigarette company wants to give £3,000 or £4,000 to attract smokers outside, that's great. To turn it down would be a bit silly."

However, a spokesman for BAT told the Morning Advertiser they would wait until the smoke ban guidlines were released before committing to any projects.

"We don't want smokers to suffer social exclusion. But there is little point in setting up a scheme to pay for outside areas until the logistics of the ban have been set out - but we're not ruling it out."​

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Colin Grainger​ via email 11/04/2006"I think this is an excellent development. It's about time the fight evened up a bit.

The war on smokers has been waged by ASH and has been bankrolled by the pharmaceutical companies. There is abundant court-room quality evidence to support this. Meanwhile, in the blue corner, Big Tobacco are severely restricted on where and how they can spend their money to promote what is, after all, a legal product, fully endorsed by HMG.

Not all smokers want to quit, as ASH would have us believe. So we need choice.

I hope and pray that come voting time, the 13 million of us who have had our social lives severely curtailed, will remember this."

Frances Winner​ via email 12/04/2006"Mr Grainger, you make an excellent point. I and all my smoking friends and colleagues will be looking to find an MP to vote for who supports our right to equal treatment and fair choice for all.

I would encourage all smokers to do the same. We are not second-class citizens, but intelligent people who have weighed up the pleasure vs the risk and decided that the small and actual risk (which is not the level of risk touted by ASH) is worth it.

Others take risks such as driving cars, flying, wearing aluminium-based deodorants, eating barbecued foods, visiting their doctor (4th leading cause of death = doctor error), wearing high heels, taking up sports, using products that contain sodium laurel sulfate etc. Just about everything carries a risk. If you enjoy something enough, you accept the risk. I eschew all of the above because their value in my life does not justify the risk. Smoking, however, is a pleasure I will not give up for anything.

I do not wish my smoke to bother other, reasonable people, and would very much appreciate ventilation in order to bring greater comfort to their social life. As for the irrational intolerants for whom no solution is ever enough until smokers are wiped from the face of the earth, they can go hang for all I care. Why governments are pandering to this small minority of whinge-bags I have no idea. It seems to be a case of the squeaky wheel getting the grease. I'd rather let them squeak themselves hoarse, personally.

I welcome the tobacco companies efforts to help publicans with the extra costs that have been foisted upon them. I only wish that the same tobacco companies had supported their customer-base before we reached this ridiculous state of affairs."

Peggy​ via email 12/04/2006"How come we pubs in Ireland weren't offered anything by the tobacco companies?"

Alastair Elliott​ via email 12/04/2006"I second entirely what my friend Colin says.

If this draconian Bill does go through then the least that can be done is for money to be invested in desireable outdoor areas for those that wish to smoke, but lets hope that it wont come to this and that the common sense approach of Ventilation will be the route that is taken."

Neil Manley​ via email 12/04/2006"Regarding the cash donation from cigarette manufacturers to improve outside areas now that is what I call Lucky Strike. How do I get in touch with the reprasentative?"