Originally posted by David
We have had the "smoking police" up here for a little while now. They are actually Trading Standards Officer as they have official powers which can be used with the smoking act in Scotland.
Don't know if the same would apply in England.
All that happens now, is that you fight your way through a group of people standing at the door of a public building to get in (thats if you can see the door for the haze [}:)])
It seems to be very well policed or maybe it's just that everyone has accepted the decision. Again the downside is that some elderly are intimidated by the crowds that now stand in the street.
David
I think it's probably "accepted the decision". We've had the smoking ban for three years now and everyone was amazed at how quickly everyone accepted it. There was a school of thought that said that the Irish would only give a token nod to the legislation and after a few days it would be back to usual but that never happened. Here it is policed by Environmental Health Officers (what a nice job to go into pubs as part of your working routine and mingle with the crowd). There are some pubs who have lock-ins and allow people to smoke but EHOs can't police that because they are effectively breaking the law by so doing.
The other side of it was that the craic outside many pubs was better than within and people took to drinking outside. In some areas they had to introduce by-laws about this because it did seem intimidating but on the other hand a book was published about the best pubs to be outside in Dublin!
