On 2008-02-20 19:39:38 +0000, "Dave Plowman (News)"
said:

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.

Because now you can smell the rankness of the cooking fat trodden into
the carpets and permeating the decorations.