A proposal to make smokers pay £10 for a permit to buy tobacco is the latest weapon in the war on smoking. But as Claire Dodd discovers, some licensees are illegally fighting back by holding after hours smoking lock-ins
It's 2.13am and I’m sat at the bar next to a chain-smoking biker, a cavewoman and a Labour councillor. My eyes sting as the air is thick with the smoke. There are about 20 other people who have lit up.
At this moment in time they’re all staring at a group of women dressed as cheerleaders dancing across the bar and pool table. Wearing white vests and skirts fashioned from pink and white bin bags, they stand out from the leather-clad bikers who are ‘rocking out’ to Queen’s 'Fat Bottomed Girls'.
I’m at a smoking lock-in at a country pub in the North of England, which I have been asked not to identify. I admit I had expected it to be a far more low-key, clandestine affair. But there’s both a biker meeting and a birthday party on and although the pub is only licensed until 2am the party carries on until well after 4am.
Word spreads
around
A large group of locals are here too. They started to appear in dribs and drabs from around midnight. Word has spread that the pub is a ‘smoker’s sanctuary’ and people travel from several villages away to light up here after hours.
Two hours later, the bar is heaving with people – almost all of them smoking. The licensee points me in the direction of one of his best customers. “I wouldn’t go to a pub that doesn’t let you smoke,” the customer tells me. “I’d go in the toilets and have one. I’m not going in the cold to have one. The ban is bollocks, we’re being treated like lepers.” Another regular says: “At the end of the day all the government is trying to do is rob us blind. They stop smoking to stop us coming out for a drink and then drive us to the supermarkets.”
Eight months on from the introduction of the smoking ban in England, many pubs are reporting dramatic falls in takings. With cold weather keeping smokers at home, some rebel licensees across England are taking the law into their own hands by holding similar smoking lock-ins. For some it’s a way of sticking two fingers up to a ban which they don’t agree with, while others say that it’s the only way they can keep their heads above water.
This pub is entirely dependent on its wet trade and the licensee tells me that all but three of his regulars are smokers. “If I strictly enforced the ban I would be shut down,” he tells me as he lights up. “Instead of taking £2,000 a week, I’d be taking £800, which I couldn’t survive on.”
Fear of getting caught
In this town alone thepublican.com is aware of at least six pubs that are allowing smokers to light up after hours, though few as blatantly as this one. Another licensee told me he will often lock up and get the ashtrays out if there are a few regulars in the pub at closing time. He, like the other licensees mentioned in this article, is worried about getting caught and asks me not to print his name. But for every licensee flouting the ban, there are many, many more who are enforcing it.
I spoke to a licensee in the town who tells me that pubs holding smoke-ins are stealing his trade. “I’m open till 2am at the weekend. After midnight used to be one of my busiest times, when the other pubs had kicked out. “Big gangs of lads used to come in. The lock-ins are taking my business. My takings in those two hours have dropped from £1,200 to £600.”
And indeed, I’ve been watching groups of men in their late teens skulk into the bar and light up for the past few hours. “Regulars from other bars are coming here to smoke,” the licensee at the biker pub tells me, “including a local councillor. He’s a director of the local working men’s club but he has a drink down there and then comes down here till one or two in the morning to smoke.”
As the lock-in draws to a close there are cigarette butts everywhere. On table-tops, in the sinks, in the toilets and trodden into the carpets around the bar. But, with the councillor a regular customer and the activities at the pub well known in the area, the licensee tells me he has no plans to stub out his smoke-in. He says he can’t afford to.
• Are you aware of ‘smoke-ins’ taking place in your area? Or are you holding one yourself? Call the news team on 020 7955 3759 or email news@thepublican.com
Why smoke-ins are illegal
-
He says: “Smoking in the main public areas of a pub such as the bar, whether it is locked or open for business, is always illegal.
“Once the doors are locked the ban still applies – it’s still a public space and you can be prosecuted. When you lock the doors it doesn’t technically become private.”
This also applies to a cleaner or barstaff smoking on the premises on their own when the bar is closed.
When it comes to smoking in private accommodation above the pub, the law is a little less clear, says Allen.
“If a licensee had totally private accommodation and was a smoker, there’s no reason at all why they couldn’t smoke there.
“Could they permit people to go up into that area and have a smoke? They can entertain genuine friends who are smokers. But if they were to permit customers to take drinks up there and have a fag, then I think there’s a real problem.
“You can entertain your friends in your private room but I don’t think you can turn it into a bar. The moment it becomes a public room it’s affected by the smoking legislation.”
i have just give up my pub,declaring myself bankrupt.a lot due to smoking ban,i know 4 landladys in 4 mile radius who have had do same.i am a non smoker but this was my chosen proffesion and i think the ban is robbing us of our livelyhood,i am now on benefits.you find most bar staff smoke as well,i can't see the point of this stupid law.even non smokers are going outside with smokers to carry on their conversation.i found also people coming in and not buying drinks.cos they had to keep going outside for a fag some had hiden drinks behind seats in smoking area and were having their own drinks when outside having fag.i had to stop having bands cos they were playing to an empty room everyone outside,when one lot come in another lot go outide
david21 February, 2008, 16:42
#1 I "stole" fom a blogger.
#2 are my thoughts.
#3 is a fact.
1.) The pubs that are now closing have, for generations, been the focal point of the community, the place where company and conversation have mattered as much, probably more, than drinking. It is no surprise that, as pubs close and supermarkets promote cheap booze, we now lead the world in binge-drinking. Take away the pub and drinking at home is only and exclusively about the consumption of alcohol.
There are other unseen health implications of the ban that was meant to be so good for us. Recently, there has been a debate in Ireland as to why levels of suicide and depression have been rising in recent years. The experts have generally agreed on one of the main causes. "The pub was a social centre. It created a sense of togetherness," one of them said. "That is all dying out now and people can find themselves alone, in some cases drinking alone, which can lead to an even greater sense of loneliness."
Sincere busybodies within government will probably welcome the arrival of clean, respectable gastropubs and cappuccino joints. But it turns out that the old-fashioned pub, scruffy and smoky as it may have been, was bringing us together and doing us more good than anyone realised.
2.) I was thinking last night whilst I was drinking my 4.5%abv (stronger=extra duty) CAMRA award winning, brewed only with the best quality ingredients, organic lager; "I wonder why Sam Smith's high quality products are consistently much lower in price than the insipid products of the major brewers? After all, I assume they pay the same prices for their energy, transport and wages as other brewers do. I wondered perhaps, if it may be due to the fact that Sams' is a small independent brewery with only two shareholders?"
ps. There will be no price increases from Sam again this year, unless A. Darling (what a charming name) increases tax in his pending budget.
3.) We have not increased our prices (with the exception of duty rises) since 1990. (Sam Smith’s brewery spokesman}
Michael L21 February, 2008, 15:35
A shame that once for many, may years i was lock-ins for booze. Now it's just to have a cigarette. Heck, what have we been all driven to here? I, personally hope someone has the guts to have this silly law looked at. I also hope loads of these 'smoke easies' spiral out of control! LOL
Michael
Readers' comments
i have just give up my pub,declaring myself bankrupt.a lot due to smoking ban,i know 4 landladys in 4 mile radius who have had do same.i am a non smoker but this was my chosen proffesion and i think the ban is robbing us of our livelyhood,i am now on benefits.you find most bar staff smoke as well,i can't see the point of this stupid law.even non smokers are going outside with smokers to carry on their conversation.i found also people coming in and not buying drinks.cos they had to keep going outside for a fag some had hiden drinks behind seats in smoking area and were having their own drinks when outside having fag.i had to stop having bands cos they were playing to an empty room everyone outside,when one lot come in another lot go outide
#1 I "stole" fom a blogger. #2 are my thoughts. #3 is a fact. 1.) The pubs that are now closing have, for generations, been the focal point of the community, the place where company and conversation have mattered as much, probably more, than drinking. It is no surprise that, as pubs close and supermarkets promote cheap booze, we now lead the world in binge-drinking. Take away the pub and drinking at home is only and exclusively about the consumption of alcohol. There are other unseen health implications of the ban that was meant to be so good for us. Recently, there has been a debate in Ireland as to why levels of suicide and depression have been rising in recent years. The experts have generally agreed on one of the main causes. "The pub was a social centre. It created a sense of togetherness," one of them said. "That is all dying out now and people can find themselves alone, in some cases drinking alone, which can lead to an even greater sense of loneliness." Sincere busybodies within government will probably welcome the arrival of clean, respectable gastropubs and cappuccino joints. But it turns out that the old-fashioned pub, scruffy and smoky as it may have been, was bringing us together and doing us more good than anyone realised. 2.) I was thinking last night whilst I was drinking my 4.5%abv (stronger=extra duty) CAMRA award winning, brewed only with the best quality ingredients, organic lager; "I wonder why Sam Smith's high quality products are consistently much lower in price than the insipid products of the major brewers? After all, I assume they pay the same prices for their energy, transport and wages as other brewers do. I wondered perhaps, if it may be due to the fact that Sams' is a small independent brewery with only two shareholders?" ps. There will be no price increases from Sam again this year, unless A. Darling (what a charming name) increases tax in his pending budget. 3.) We have not increased our prices (with the exception of duty rises) since 1990. (Sam Smith’s brewery spokesman}
A shame that once for many, may years i was lock-ins for booze. Now it's just to have a cigarette. Heck, what have we been all driven to here? I, personally hope someone has the guts to have this silly law looked at. I also hope loads of these 'smoke easies' spiral out of control! LOL Michael