SECOND THOUGHTS.
It's ironic that so soon after writing a nostalgic piece about Irish pubs and their place in society, that I should now be penning the following. Perhaps the threads of these ideas were just floating around un-connected for a while.
Wearing my "Forest Ireland" hat over the years I have spoken to many publicans about the smoking ban in Ireland and the effect it had on their business. There seemed to be pretty uniform agreement that it was devastating and it started the rot. With the closures we have seen, then it's a no-brainer that it was a deadly blow to the pub industry.
But the devil is always in the detail so when I asked more closely about what action they took to fight the ban pre-2004, things become a bit more evasive and hazy. I heard talk of meetings with their representative body and representations to local politicians but it was all very muted and gentlemanly. Closer probing on my part always met the brick wall of, "Well it's in now so we just have to get on with it."
I never put two and two together at the time but it is becoming apparent to me now that what really was happening is quite different to what we have been told. Far from fighting the ban, the publicans fought among themselves. It seems that the major issue for pub-owners was that there could not be any exceptions to the ban when, and if it came in. If smoking in the boozer was to be banned then it had to banned in all boozers. One owner called it a level playing pitch.
In 2012 I did a media tour around the Country under the headline, "Why can't we have comfortable smoking rooms?" In the course of this trip I visited a huge pub in Galway and the barman there showed me not one, but two massive smoking rooms INSIDE the place. They had a nightclub license for late-night drinking and the guy told me it was wall-to-wall every weekend in the smoking rooms. He went so far as to say that they'd have to close down if they didn't have them.
So I ambled across the street to a smaller pub and the owner was behind the bar. He was morose and told me his business was on its last legs. I asked if it would help him to have a smoking room and he snapped at me that of course it would but he explained that he was land-locked. This meant that he had buildings attached either side and no back yard he could cover. A smoking room has to be separate from the bar just in case a wisp of smoke escapes and all of the innocent non-smokers, (who aren't there anyway), will suddenly fall off their perches. The council charged a fortune for tables and chairs on the street outside so he just could not facilitate the smoking clientele and off they went. As a result, he wanted the smoking ban more heavily policed, specifically nodding in the direction of the place I'd just seen opposite him.
It led me to pose the question to all the other publicans I met on the tour. I asked directly, "If you were permitted to do so, would you open a smoking room?" Even I was surprised by the answers. About a third would jump at the chance, a third were like the other guy and didn't have the appropriate space for one and the final third hadn't the finance necessary. From that, admittedly unscientific poll, you could deduce that two-thirds of publicans would o't support smoking rooms. Isn't that amazing?
On that tour I debated on live radio and TV with many of the big-wigs in the Anti-smoking Racket," and unsurprisingly all were adamantly against comfortable smoking rooms. But I never suspected the publicans themselves would also be because I assumed their unspoken support for their lost customers. I had forgotten the golden rule about vested interests and the competition for business between the publicans themselves. Apparently they were prepared to have their cash take drop by a half to there-quarters on the basis that they were all in the same boat. I find that self-defeating and short-sighted.
The publicans were the only group in society who could have successfully opposed the ban itself and stopped it happening in the way it did but I am now coming around to the opinion that instead, they were happy to fuck the smokers out onto the streets and to hell with them. I'd truly hate to believe that but I confess to tending in that direction. Should I settle on that view then I will have to review my own unwavering support for the pub industry, even if that is as stupid as their stance. Loyalty works both ways, doesn't it? Meanwhile should the 800,000 smokers have doubts about the motives of the 3,000 publicans and vice versa, the Anti-smoking Racket will be ensuring that the smokers drink at home with cheap alcohol bought from the supermarkets. They look like they want the vapors to stay at home also.
It's all just so impractical!
Addressing first your previous post about the role of pubs in society prior to the nanny state moving in on them, yes, they were an integral part of community life where people could go to unwind, make new friends and discuss the current affairs of the day. I remember back in 1970, I lived in a fairly rural part of southern England, and one of the great enjoyments was to discover obscure pubs in the countryside to go to. Of course, that meant driving back from said pub, which I often did having consumed more pints than I could keep count of. But mostly quite capable of driving safely, if a little erratically sometimes. But they didn't have breathalysers then, and on the couple of times I did get stopped because I had a bit of a wobble on, it was "walk along the kerb..". If you did that to their satisfaction, all was ok, and you'd be on your way. One time, they decided I was a bit too pissed, so they made me park the car somewhere safe, took the keys off me, gave me a lift home and told me to pick up the keys the next day from the station. Inconvenient, but not nearly as inconvenient as getting fined a preposterous amount of money, losing your licence for a year and thereafter having to pay inflated insurance premiums.
I'm glad I was alive then, when nanny hadn't wrapped her asphyxiating wings around anything that smacked of pleasure. We smoked, we drank, we lived and we loved. And most of all, we had fun, with no-one leaning over our shoulders nagging us about what we were allowed, and not allowed, to do. I find it quite breathtakingly unbelievable the pass in which we find ourselves today. Can't even smoke in a pub? What the fuck? What stone did these revolting killjoys crawl out from under? Why didn't someone step on them before they could do any damage? Now they rule our lives (or half-lives, maybe I should say).
You are correct in that the publicans actively participated in the destruction of their industry through sheer petty self-interest. They were, however, handed a noose with which to hang themselves. Tobacco Control very cleverly fomented the idea that a 'level playing field' was the fairest option, and that no other realistic options existed. So they took the noose, carefully read the intructions as to how it must be used, and proceeded to find a convenient rafter from which to hang themselves. Fools.
I have fortunately been able to view all this idiocy from afar, having left UK in 2002, and even more fortunately having chosen a country where Political Correctness gets kicked into touch every time it tries to rear its ugly head. So the laws exist, as handed down by the masters on high in Brussels, but they are implemented half-heartedly and rarely prosecuted. Hence, I have never been (and am not likely to be) randomly breathalysed, and nearly every bar and restaurant I go to, I can smoke inside.
I am, however, still affected when I travel. In a few months, for instance, I have a long-haul flight coming up. With all the attendant fatuity of the smoking bans on planes.
Fuck.
I remember when at check-in, they asked "smoking or non-smoking?"
How civilised.
Those were the days when flying was actually a pleasure, with none of the pointless theatre of 'security'. You could turn up half an hour before the flight and have plenty of time in hand.
Ah, I seem to have wandered well off topic (nothing to do with the bottle of red, I can assure you), so I'll go now.
Oh how I despise the grey, joyless bastards who are trying to make us all into Winston Smith's peers.
Your description of the south of England back then could have been south Cork when I was younger. Beers and smokes for the evning by the sea followed by a leisurely drive home, often stopping if you had female company. The Gardai, if you did meet them, were blokes just like you and as long as you weren’t an absolute tit and almost blind with drink, you were told to go straight home and be careful.
On the transatlantic runs I too have happy memories of the back three smoking rows on the Jumbo and they had the added advantage of being beside the beer fridge. One night on the way to New Orleans I was joined by a black Southern air hostess who sang the blues gently in the seat beside me. It was pure nectar.
Maybe a decent war will bring those days back because other than that, I suspect a grey world of petty rules ahead and I too hate the bastards for it.