Chris Maclean: fear of the smoke ban

I am reluctantly paying some attention to the smoking ban. It is going to affect us all and the consensus seems to be that we must prepare for it.

I am a reformed non-smoker. I smoked 40-plus a day until three years ago when I buried two customers in two days who had died from lung cancer. It had to stop.

So I don't mind smoking, particularly. I object when it is blown into my face, and I don't like smouldering stubs.

But it is the impact on my business that concerns me.

Representatives from the brewery have discussed options including the erection of 'jumbrellas' ~ huge fabric shelters for smokers to hide under. But whatever options are available it does not disguise the fact that smokers who currently enjoy a pint and a cigarette will have to leave the pub for their smoke. And it is that change of behaviour that alarms me. The fact that I've a canvas lid with a gas heater in my car park will hold little attraction to a smoker on a wet, windy February night. More attractive might be the continental style of sitting outside in the front of the pub, watching the world go by. But the brewery isn't keen to encourage smokers at the front. It does look horrible.

More scary for me, however, is the insistence of these stupid signs.

If you smoke in my pub after July 1st you may be fined a fixed penalty of £50.

If I permit you to smoke I might be fined up to £2,500

If I do not display a sign up on each entrance I can be fined £200.

Why?

If no one is smoking on the premises and I am rigorously preventing them why must I state the obvious and display a sign?

I hate statutory, meaningless and unnecessary signage.

I think I may ignore this one.

There is an hotel near here that has a sign on a descending stairway saying "Mind Your Head".

It is also written in Braille.

Think about it.