Introduction
According to most stereotypes and cultural patterns, traditionally a smoker, society in Britain grew weary of smoking, mainly passive smoking, by the late 2000s. Community, big business, despite the risks, and health institutions rallied around the goal of building new anti-smoking trends. As part of a massive campaign to reduce the number of smokers, one of the accepted decisions was a ban on smoking in restaurants and pubs. The closed spaces of these places and workspaces and offices contributed to the severe development of cardiovascular diseases and respiratory diseases, particularly among passive smokers. Passive smokers could become very different people, including teenagers; this circumstance was alarming to health institutions because the prospects for future generations’ health deterioration are very sad. Smoking bans in bars came with serious risks and a dire prognosis; pub owners expected harm in the short term, yet such a ban benefited British society.
Outlook, Expectations and Forecasts
Scottish bars were among the first to respond to the ban under discussion in their forecasts. The owners predicted a decline in the popularity of bars and the loss of a significant part of customers. In addition, the owners’ costs included rearranging the pubs and changing the landscape. It was necessary to prepare and, at a minimum, purchase signs with no smoking.
Pub owners compared themselves in forecasts to restaurant owners, who found setting up new non-smoking spaces easier because they already had experience. In general, restaurants are geographically arranged in such a way it is convenient for visitors and employees (Goel and Nelson 2017 pp. 50-59. Families frequently go to restaurants with children and teenagers. These places themselves are not as smoke-free as the pubs. After the Scottish pubs, the pubs of England and Wales, where public support was high, began to implement the bans. General support, despite disappointing forecasts, forced owners to pass a law to ban smoking.
The Social Role of Smoking in Pubs
As mentioned above, the pubs themselves are designed for meetings and drinking, in which smoking looks very harmonious. Many people are predisposed to smoking when drinking alcohol while chatting with friends. Pub owners were well aware of this, so they were afraid people would drink alcohol at home and not visit their places in large companies. However, after measuring the ban’s impact, it turned out that people did not choose to smoke in their homes. The importance of pubs did not disappear with the smoking ban, and people continued to make appointments for each other there.
They were smoking while drinking relaxed people and made them feel more confident. They could feel at home and behave freely. The owners were worried that the smoking ban would make customers think constrained and violate their rights. However, the ban on smoking in pubs was very logical, as the size of their premises is often smaller than in restaurants. There are often crowds of people in such small spaces, and non-smokers suffer more from secondhand smoke at high density.
Initial Response
Initially, the ban did reduce the percentage of people who seek to relax in pubs. However, all the customers who seemed to have been lost returned after a while in the long term. Microeconomic factors in this aspect are intertwined with a decrease in the number of smokers in the UK. The UK successfully fought after adopting the law against smoking, and society eventually became less in need of this bad habit. The government sought to make smoking socially frowned upon and unpopular (Yang and Zucchelli 2018 pp. 225-227). As a result, such a ban has brought profound benefits for women and young people, and they were able to visit more restaurants and pubs in companies without any inconvenience.
The harm of Passive Smoking
With frequent exposure to smoke, passive smoking causes maximum harm, which means that the government should stop it in places where many people work. Unlike a passive one, a smoker will receive portions of smoke passed through the filter. It includes work offices and pubs as places to work for bartenders, waiters, cleaners, and some artists or musicians who perform there. Investigations show: “The evidence on smoking and then passive smoking helped raise attention to public health” (Cairney and Yamazaki 2018 p. 18). Passive smokers have a very high risk of developing lung cancer. They could develop asthma, which was, by the way, the main reason for the ban. After adopting the prohibition in the late 2000s, emergency calls for asthma attacks have dropped. Passive smoking harms the cardiovascular system and leads to heart attack or stroke conditions.
Reopening of Pubs after the Ban
Several hundred bars and pubs were forced to close their doors permanently, unable to comply with the ban. An essential task for the owners has become a reasonable notification of their visitors about the adopted ban and following it. Before charging a hefty fine to a visitor, the owner or director had to take on the weighty responsibility of informing. To do this, restaurants spend money on signs, instructions, and rearrangement of premises. Some pubs could get creative with the ban and put up signs to grab many people’s attention. As it turned out, people reacted quite positively to the signals (as ‘No smoking’ signs) they saw and to the news about the transition to the utterly non-smoking area of their favorite pubs (Smoking ban in the United Kingdom n.d. para. 34). Many people were influenced by the fact that some news reports later indicated that smoking bans in pubs had reduced the incidence of childhood asthma. People say that they care not only about others but make a profound contribution to the future.
As scientists and journalists later found out, the local ban on smoking in pubs affected tobacco at home. It is due to the improvement in the health of children. People coming to their favorite pubs possibly understand that smoking is no longer acceptable in their favorite place, which they associate with relaxation. They wanted, therefore, to smoke less in general, and at home, they rarely returned to bad habits.
Conclusion
The smoking ban was prompted by high public demand and public health concerns. The UK government and police imposed strict restrictions on pubs, where traditionally, people drank and smoked while enjoying socializing with friends or colleagues. It was an essential social and cultural attribute for them, relaxing. However, the owners were forced to resort to enforcement of the bans and to do so, and they needed to reorganize their business structure and procure eye-catching signs to attract attention. The owners took on a severe responsibility for informing their customers. Several hundred bars across the UK were forced to close, and the industry suffered losses at first; the popularity of bars has fallen somewhat. In general, the ban aimed to reduce passive smokers who inhale unfiltered smoke, exposing themselves to great danger. Pubs have regained their popularity in the long term, making this industry even more attractive to many women. One of the most pleasant consequences for those who adopted this ban was that people generally began to smoke less, including at home. It allowed children to be less likely to end up in hospitals with severe asthma attacks.
Reference List
Cairney, P. and Yamazaki, M. (2018) ‘A comparison of tobacco policy in the UK and Japan: if the scientific evidence is identical, why is there a major difference in policy?’ Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis: Research and Practice, 20(3), pp.253-268.
Goel, R.K. and Nelson, M.A. (2017) Global efforts to combat smoking: An economic evaluation of smoking control policies. Routledge.
Smoking ban in the United Kingdom (n.d.)
Yang, M. and Zucchelli, E. (2018) ‘The impact of public smoking bans on well‐being externalities: evidence from a policy experiment’. Scottish Journal of Political Economy, 65(3), pp.224-247.