In article ,
Clive George wrote:
That was the situation before the
smoking ban - what proportion of eg pubs were non-smoking? Bugger all.

Which suggests there was no real call for the smoking ban in pubs.
There were non smoking pubs before the ban - and if they'd been a
commercial success others would have followed suit.

Eh? Rather the opposite, surely?

No. There are other benefits commercially to non smoking premises - longer
lasting decorations, possibly lower insurance premiums, etc. But very few
pubs chose to be non smoking. If those that did were a commercial success
others would have followed.

I don't know of anyone who avoided pubs when smoking was allowed who now
is a regular pub user. I do know of a few smokers who no longer go as
often as they did, though.

Plenty said they avoided pubs because of the smoke - but that's not the
same as now using them as they're non smoking.

--
*It is wrong to ever split an infinitive *

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.